[thunderbird120]

>Intel on 18A is literally TSMC's 3nm process + backside power delivery, which means more power efficiency, performance also less heat.

That's a pretty serious abuse of the word "literally" given that they have nothing in common except vague density figures which don't mean that much at this point.

Here's a line literally from the article

>Based on this analysis it is our belief that Intel 18A has the highest performance for a 2nm class process with TSMC in second place and Samsung in third place.

Given what we currently know about 18A, Intel's process appears to be less dense but with a higher emphasis on performance, which is in line with recent Intel history. Just looking at the density of a process won't tell you everything about it. If density were everything then Intel's 14nm++++ chips wouldn't have managed to remain competitive in raw performance for so many years against significantly denser processes. Chip makers have a bunch of parameters they have to balance when designing new nodes. This has only gotten more important as node shrinks have become more difficult. TSMC has always leaned more towards power efficiency, largely because their rise to dominance was driven by mobile focused chips. Intel's processes have always prioritized performance more as more of their products are plugged into the wall. Ideally, you want both but R&D resources are not unlimited.

[zozbot234]

The death of Dennard scaling means that power efficiency is king, because a more power efficient chip is also a chip that can keep more of its area powered up over time for any given amount of cooling - which is ultimately what matters for performance. This effect becomes even more relevant as node sizes decrease and density increases.

[thunderbird120]

If it were that simple fabs wouldn't offer a standard cell libraries in both high performance and high density varieties. TSMC continues to provide both for their 2nm process. A tradeoff between power efficiency and raw performance continues to exist.