[HN Gopher] Intel Unleashed, Gelsinger on Intel, IDM 2.0
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Intel Unleashed, Gelsinger on Intel, IDM 2.0
Author : kaboro
Score : 204 points
Date : 2021-03-24 15:38 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (stratechery.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (stratechery.com)
| paulpan wrote:
| Great keynote and clearly it's a massive improvement to have a
| former silicon veteran at the helm again at Intel. For all the
| major announcements made, I think looking at them in context of
| the industry and other competitors reveals some interesting
| nuances:
|
| 1. This is Intel's proverbial hailmary rather than "unleashed".
| The industry is moving on from x86 and with its other bets (e.g.
| radio modem, mobileeye) not paid/paying off, the revenue will
| quickly nosedive within the next few years.
|
| 2. IDM 2.0 is an involuntary move due to Intel's loss of both
| performance leadership (to AMD/ARM) and fabrication node
| leadership (to TSMC). Clearly their factories are becoming
| liabilities and opening up to outside business cushions the
| freefall.
|
| 3. 2023 is a long time away in the silicon industry. As pointed
| out in Stratechery, 7nm is actually further delayed than what Bob
| Swan previously announced. Apple is rumored to be on TSMC 3nm
| this year and AMD will likely move down to 5nm by next year.
| Unless Meteor Lake is a massive performance uplift, then it may
| not change the overall trajectory. Intel's saving grace at this
| point is the capacity constraints at both TSMC and Samsung.
| MangoCoffee wrote:
| >7nm is actually further delayed than what Bob Swan previously
| announced
|
| Intel can't even solve their 10nm yield problem. Its great to
| have another foundry but Intel needs to step up.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Sounds like Intel has solved 10nm and is confident it'll
| release on desktop this year.
| totalZero wrote:
| > mobileeye) not paid/paying off
|
| Uh, what? Mobileye bagged $333mm in revenue last quarter.
|
| See for yourself:
|
| https://d1io3yog0oux5.cloudfront.net/_9ea32bedbda3919ea6d9a1...
| ksec wrote:
| >Apple is rumored to be on TSMC 3nm this year
|
| Not sure where that rumour are from. But TSMC 3nm is next year.
|
| If Gelsinger didn't lie, and the original 7nm schedule and spec
| were unchanged, the 100% increase in EUV usage would actually
| put it close to if not on par with TSMC 3nm. Although they will
| still be a year and a half behind TSMC.
|
| And technically 7nm are taping out this year. The only reason
| why volume product wont come until 2023 is because Intel has a
| SuperComputer contract to fill with the US DOE.
|
| Both Intel 5nm and TSMC 2nm will transition to GAAFET. But I
| guess Intel ( Pat ) want us to focus on the strategic changes
| rather than the detail of future roadmap.
| paulpan wrote:
| Agreed, TSMC 3nm is slated for full-production next year
| (2022) but risk production is end of this year.
| https://www.anandtech.com/show/16024/tsmc-details-3nm-
| proces...
|
| It depends on how Apple maneuvers. Mobile chips (A15) are
| high volume so very unlikely to get moved but it's certainly
| possible for the lower-volume Mac products, e.g. M2/M1X for
| Macbook/iMac, to switch onto leading-node 3nm if yields are
| good.
|
| Apple is certainly incentivized as it'd allow them to
| continue the narrative that their own SOCs are superior to
| anything else on the market.
| bredren wrote:
| >Apple is certainly incentivized as it'd allow them to
| continue the narrative that their own SOCs are superior to
| anything else on the market.
|
| Hasn't this narrative been largely shaped around
| performance impact on customer experiences?
|
| Recall the announcement video which was decried as
| "marketing hype" by some tech voices prior to release.
|
| If so, M2/M1X should be able to continue this narrative on
| a performance basis alone regardless of whether they make
| the jump to 3nm.
| sagarm wrote:
| Apple M1 is on TSMC 5nm; Ryzen 3 is on TSMC 7nm and Intel
| is famously still on an (advanced) 14nm process.
|
| A big chunk of Apple's power advantage (which can
| translate to better perf as well, since the key limits
| are thermal) can be attributed to the process node,
| though we won't know how much for sure until we get an
| apples to apples comparison. I agree with Gap, retaining
| the process node advantage will help sustain and entrench
| the perception that Apple's chips are better, easing the
| transition.
| cjblomqvist wrote:
| 3. It should be noted though that Intels 7nm will most likely
| be close to TSMCs 5nm. Regardless they're obviously lagging
| behind.
| readams wrote:
| They should also announce a switch to the more fantastical nm
| sizes as well in their next node.
| MR4D wrote:
| Looks like you got downvoted for this, but honestly, I
| wonder how much INTC gets dinged in the stock market
| because of this.
|
| No idea how to measure the impact, but I'm sure it's in the
| tens of billions.
|
| It doesn't even matter if it's right or wrong - it matters
| because the headline of 7nm vs 5nm sucks for INTC stock.
|
| I think Intel could easily put some marketing language
| about shifting to an "industry standard measurement
| practice" or something similar (remember, it's not for
| techies, but the people who buy INTC stock).
| gumby wrote:
| While I agree 100%, I feel compelled to point out that it
| was Intel who for years embraced and encouraged the
| bullshit use of clock speed as _the_ metric of performance.
|
| Entirely precise yet only partially meaningful, which is
| just as true of the chase for node bragging rights.
|
| So there's some karmic justice in Intel being pilloried for
| being behind in this way.
| totalZero wrote:
| Not quite. Node numbers don't actually correspond to
| transistor gate length. So it would be like one company
| saying "we run at 3GHz" and the other saying "we run at
| 4GHz" when both run at 4GHz.
|
| Separately, what you are saying is true -- size is not
| the be-all-end-all of processor performance. But GP is
| referring to the dislocation between nomenclature and
| geometry.
| ghaff wrote:
| That's because Intel was on the single-threaded
| performance bandwagon for at least one beat too long.
| (Which was at the time of AMD's first renaissance with
| Opteron and multi-core.) Which a certain Intel exec--I
| was an analyst at the time--told me was because Microsoft
| had such a lack of confidence in their ability to pivot
| to multi-core architectures. And I have no reason to
| especially disbelieve that.
|
| Interestingly, the shift to multi-core on the desktop
| hasn't been the big problem that a lot of people feared
| it would be. I remember hobbling on crutches cross-
| country to SF for an Intel quad core (?) launch and there
| was a lot of hand-wringing on the topic but mostly things
| worked out.
| gumby wrote:
| Even considering only single core machines, so much
| affects workload throughput: thermals, IO system, IO
| devices...punters were paying a premium for "high speed"
| laptops that were slower than a desktop with the same
| clock speed.
|
| This bit Apple too when they boasted of their PPC clock
| speed, only to fall behind in both clock speed and
| performance. (I'm a Mac user: this is bipartisan
| criticism).
|
| I'd say I'm glad those days are over, but of course the
| deceptive metrics have merely been replaced with
| different deceptive metrics.
| _carbyau_ wrote:
| This just seems like Intel's version of Amazon's AWS.
|
| "Hey we have a world class [whatever] over here. Wonder if we
| can sell it to the world as well as using it for our business?"
| SavantIdiot wrote:
| I'm curious to see if Gelsinger can fix Intel's 127x fiascos
| (there are multiple). It's not like the process engineers are
| sitting around scratching their butts, they are on call nonstop
| and I know two that have quit due to pressure. He can't drive the
| engineers any harder, so how is he going to fix it?
| ac29 wrote:
| For those not in the know, the 127x processes include Intel's
| 10nm, 7nm, and 5nm manufacturing. I had to look it up.
|
| I'm under the impression 10nm is largely working by now, it
| just took a _long_ time to become competitive with Intel 's
| ultra optimized 14nm process. Supposedly they have already
| shipped 100K+ units of Ice Lake Xeon Scalable CPUs:
| https://www.anandtech.com/show/16539/intel-ice-lake-xeon-sca...
| ahartmetz wrote:
| Smarter, not harder, seems to be the solution ;)
|
| Like, say, giving the engineers more say in the goals for the
| next process(es) to make them achievable. Talking, not ruling.
| SavantIdiot wrote:
| That statement is cliche for a reason: because there's no way
| to make the distinction and is entirely subjective. I want to
| hear his concrete actions from my friends that are still
| fighting the good fight and haven't quit.
| jerrysievert wrote:
| I had always wondered why intel hadn't been actively fabbing
| chips for other customers - it's not like they destroy a fab
| completely when a new process comes on line (if you live in the
| Portland area, you can see the rapid and constant build outs of
| fab space), why not sell that process to others? there does
| happen to be a global chip shortage after all.
|
| nice to see someone addressing that. I welcome technical
| leadership back to intel.
| paulpan wrote:
| I think it was largely due to their historically bleeding edge
| fabrication tech/node and market share. Until the recent
| resurgence of AMD and rise of ARM, Intel was able to sell out
| their inventory and keep their fabs at 100% capacity.
|
| But given the combination of losing the node advantage to TSMC
| and performance advantage to AMD & ARM, I'm guessing Intel has
| accumulated inventory and this poses a business risk. Opening
| up their fabs in the future is a way to mitigate this risk;
| essentially becoming both a chip seller and external
| manufacturer.
|
| The other reason is probably textbook monopolistic behavior:
| vertical integration means if you want top tier chips, there
| was no other option but Intel. Often overlooked is how closely
| correlated fabrication node is to chip performance, e.g. if
| Apple's M1 is fabbed at TSMC 7nm instead of 5nm, the
| performance wouldn't be so widely lauded.
| MangoCoffee wrote:
| >why intel hadn't been actively fabbing chips for other
| customers
|
| Intel foundry have to be a pure play in order to win customers
| trust. Apple move away from Samsung and now a core customer of
| TSMC, trust is an issue.
| meepmorp wrote:
| Is that for IntelFoundaries giving newer process node
| capacity preferentially to Intel, or corporate IP theft
| reasons? Or something else I hadn't considered.
| ksec wrote:
| >or corporate IP theft reasons
|
| This. It is the reason why Apple dont Fab their SoC with
| Samsung Foundry.
| jerrysievert wrote:
| not all things that need to be fabbed are cpu/gpu
| components though, there are plenty of other things that
| need fab space.
| ksec wrote:
| That was in the context of parents point of Apple /
| Samsung or Intel / Nvidia and AMD.
|
| If you have no direct competition with them then of
| course you can Fab with Samsung.
| Marsymars wrote:
| Has something changed since Apple fabbed the A9 with
| Samsung?
| macintux wrote:
| Did they? I see reports at the time claiming that would
| be the case, but more recent sources indicate it never
| happened, that TSMC has been Apple's sole supplier since
| 2015.
| Nokinside wrote:
| There is huge demand for for 14nm, 22 nm and 45nm processes.
|
| When fab is 4-5 years old, they start to manufacture other
| products. Different CPU's, chipsets, SoCs, microcontrollers,
| NICs, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chipsets, vechicle SoC's for Intel
| and Intel customers.
| gumby wrote:
| Lower margin parts. A good business, but when you have a high
| margin high volume product, Wall Street considers anything
| else is to be subtractive from earnings.
|
| This is the microeconomic equivalent of the "dutch disease"
| extesy wrote:
| I wonder if Intel is also going to increase compensation across
| the board to be able to execute on this bold plan. Historically,
| Intel's salaries were among the lowest and it has been losing
| talent left and right to its chip-making competitors (Apple,
| Nvidia, etc).
| deadalus wrote:
| IDM = Internet Download Manager , in most people's mind
| IncRnd wrote:
| > IDM = Internet Download Manager , in most people's mind
|
| IDM in _most_ people 's minds is Intelligent Dance Music.
|
| But, in Tech I am familiar with many people using IDM for
| IDentity Management. When I was associated with a different
| Tech vertical than I am now, people used IDM as an acronym for
| Integrated Document Mangement.
| technofiend wrote:
| Eh?
|
| IDM = _Industrial_ Dance Music for me. I guess there are a
| few definitions floating around.
| monocasa wrote:
| Industrial sort of lost the war for IDM, and the Industrial
| Dance Music genre is now called EBM "Electronic Body
| Music".
| pantulis wrote:
| Was going the say the same, it's "Industrial" for me, but
| I've also heard the term referred to "Intelligent".
| IncRnd wrote:
| True. Industrial Dance Music is not the same as Intelligent
| Dance Music.
| ece wrote:
| x86 is IP, Intel Foundry Services is new, and EUV has been
| embraced. I'm not sure you could ask for more other than
| execution.
| phcordner wrote:
| I see the "geopolitical" angle again and it's still not
| vindicated by this announcement. Nothing that Gelsinger said
| indicated he came to those decisions by seeing what was cookin'
| on the threat board:
|
| > We are committed to ensuring this capacity will support
| commercial customers, as well as address unique government and
| security requirements in the U.S.
|
| Geographic distribution makes a certain amount of business sense
| and getting those nice DoD contracts makes even more.
|
| What doesn't make sense is China having Wing Attack Plan R ready
| to go against TSMC and Samsung.
| kcorbitt wrote:
| Seems like the biggest news here is Intel committing strongly to
| its fab business. Walling that division off from Intel's own chip
| design business is critical to giving it a chance to succeed.
| Having a third fab with competitive tech (along with TSMC and
| Samsung) is great for the world!
|
| This is pretty bad for Taiwan geopolitically though... once US
| chipmakers have a plausible local manufacturing alternative, the
| US is less likely to risk WW3 by standing up to China if/when it
| tries to annex Taiwan.
| foobarbazetc wrote:
| This is a simplistic view that assumes every other factor and
| actor remains static.
| davedx wrote:
| I don't think a keynote is bad for Taiwan geopolitically. Intel
| have a ton of cash on their balance sheet, but they still need
| to _execute_ on this strategy. It astounds me what people take
| at face value here, considering the incredible momentum Intel
| needs to turn its ship around. It reminds me of Elon promising
| coast to coast FSD.
|
| I also think China/TSMC is more of an economic than an
| existential risk. The US military doesn't need 2nm
| semiconductors. US manufacturers are more than capable of
| supplying essential US supply chains. They're just not cutting
| edge like the East Asian fabs are.
| Nursie wrote:
| IIRC TSMC is planning on building fab capacity in the US soon
| anyway, which adds a new twist to that tale.
| varispeed wrote:
| I wish TSMC decided to go with the UK. We have ARM here, RPi
| and others plus very talented people. Hopefully one day it
| will happen.
| Nokinside wrote:
| TSMC builds only 25K/month 5nm megafab in Arizona. I suspect
| that it's mainly for serving the US defense needs.
|
| TSMC's GIGAFABs (> 100K/month) are used for mass
| manufacturing bleeding edge consumer electronics. They are
| still build only in Taiwan.
| avs733 wrote:
| Another way of looking at TSMC's Arizona fab is similar FAB
| 68 in Dalian, which still seems to have largely been built
| for strategic relationship building purposes.
| craigjb wrote:
| TSMC's plans for Arizona have been increased to start with
| 100k per month with future phases up to 200k [1]
|
| [1] https://technosports.co.in/2021/03/03/tsmc-to-
| build-5nm-plan...
| gumby wrote:
| To double click on that: TSMC has been playing the
| geostrategic game for a while. Taiwan wasn't simply a good
| choice because it had labor, transport access, and a
| supportive government: it played to certain Cold War issues.
|
| Then as the mainland market developed they increased their
| mainland footprint as a hedge (makes it harder for the
| Chinese government to attack TSMC, though as we've seen from
| Alibaba, Xi appears happy to "move fast and break things").
| That did in fact forestall investment in a competitor until
| recently.
|
| They have also been expanding outside China-Taiwan,
| distributing their capacity and developing support in the USA
| and Europe. Worst case (actual shooting war between China and
| Taiwan) they would have a lot to fall back on.
|
| Hon Hai has followed the same geostrategy (to even greater
| extreme) with its Foxconn subsidiary.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > They have also been expanding outside China-Taiwan,
| distributing their capacity and developing support in the
| USA and Europe. Worst case (actual shooting war between
| China and Taiwan) they would have a lot to fall back on.
|
| Very unlikely. In case of a shooting war, the industry will
| run out of consumables sooner, or later. As a fact, 90%+ of
| them come from the Taiwan/Japan/Korea triangle, and just
| any military move in the region will be effectively
| shutting the industry down globally.
| cogman10 wrote:
| > Seems like the biggest news here is Intel committing strongly
| to its fab business. Walling that division off from Intel's own
| chip design business is critical to giving it a chance to
| succeed. Having a third fab with competitive tech (along with
| TSMC and Samsung) is great for the world!
|
| Yes and no. This is also a possible signal that Intel is
| getting ready to go fabless. AMD made similar moves with
| Globalfoundries before parting ways.
| sremani wrote:
| For the foreseeable future owning Fabs is fastest way to be
| subsidized by American tax payer.
|
| Intel may make it modular, but Intel will still own those
| fabs. I do not see them spinning fabs as separate business at
| least for the decade of 20s.
| davedx wrote:
| Intel already signalled that under their last CEO. Then they
| signalled something else. Now there's a "best keynote ever"
| with their latest signalling....
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| Going fabless by building new fabs?
| rllearneratwork wrote:
| we (US voters) should be pressing our government to stand up
| for Taiwan against ccp's bullying.
| curiousgal wrote:
| Palestine too since we're pretending to care about the small
| guy.
|
| This isn't an attempt to start a debate, just saying that the
| U.S. won't intervene unless there's material gain, regardless
| of what the voters want.
| meepmorp wrote:
| > This isn't an attempt to start a debate,
|
| It's really more of a petrol bomb, yeah.
|
| Realpolitik is what it is, but in this case standing up for
| the cause of Taiwanese freedom against (mainland) Chinese
| aggression aligns fairly well with the current political
| climate in the US. I'm willing to accidentally do the right
| thing if we have to.
| vkou wrote:
| Instead of worrying about Palestine, why not stop our own
| bullying in Central and South America, first?
| thereddaikon wrote:
| They are. The last few years have caused a fairly major
| change in American's attitude towards China and Taiwan. In
| the past the US gave Taiwan half hearted support, some tech
| here, old destroyers there etc. Their military was a mix of
| obsolete hand me downs and domestically developed solutions.
| But we just sold them the latest and greatest F-16 variant.
| Just the other day a deal was signed to share technology to
| help Taiwan develop modern submarines. And there's a lot more
| going on behind the scenes no doubt.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| Trump's policies towards communist china were so bad that
| rex tilerson is on record as saying that at the end of his
| time working for trump we were farther behind with china
| than we were when he took office.
|
| Biden has to repair our US hegemony. Trump sure hurt it a
| lot in spite of his anti-china rehtoric.
|
| Selling weapons to taiwan doesn't contain china. We will
| send our own guns if a hot war is brewing there.
|
| Taiwan recognition is not the same thing as meaningfully
| containing china. The TPP and asia pivot from obama was the
| last time that america seriously tried to restrain the rise
| of china.
| VRay wrote:
| You mean this? This is what you wanted?
| https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| I personally oppose the TPP on the intellectual property
| grounds et al brought up here - but its purpose to
| contain china is what I was highlighting.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Parent's point was the TPP was explicitly designed to
| economically isolate China from its neighbors.
|
| Trade deals are ugly.
|
| But if your geopolitical goal is to prevent Asia from
| moving closer to China, you can, and we have, done worse
| than the TPP.
| bellyfullofbac wrote:
| Yeah, and then Trump pulled out of TPP, and last year
| everyone signed this deal, including China: https://en.wi
| kipedia.org/wiki/Regional_Comprehensive_Economi...
|
| And people still celebrate Trump for being tough on
| China...
| xxpor wrote:
| Whoop de do. Yeah the copyright stuff sucks but a hot war
| sucks worse. Don't lose the forest for the trees here.
| mlyle wrote:
| > Selling weapons to taiwan doesn't contain china. We
| will send our own guns if a hot war is brewing there.
|
| All of these states need to be strong enough to be a
| credible deterrent to invasion on their own.
|
| US support is neither speedy nor certain. And a speedy
| capitulation by Taiwan compromises the US's ability to
| help even if willing.
| tlear wrote:
| Original step to help with manufacturing of the subs came
| when US brokered a deal with MHI 3 years ago. The somehow
| magically "retired" MHI engineers appeared in Taiwan to
| help in development
|
| US does not have expertise to make modern non-nuclear subs.
| China can intimidate anyone in Europe not to sell. It was
| fortunate for Taiwan that Chinese pissed off Japan enough.
| Half a dozen of Soryu knockoffs can shut down PRC maritime
| trade if needed.
| meepmorp wrote:
| We should also be realistic about the strategic risks of
| having such a heavy dependency on semiconductor fabrication
| that's within easy reach of the PLA. Mitigating that risk is
| critical, and orthogonal to resisting the PRC's aggression
| towards the RoC.
| greggyb wrote:
| It is unlikely that Nvidia and AMD will want to use Intel as
| their foundry. It is unlikely that Intel would be willing to
| offer pricing compelling enough to entice those two to use
| their foundries.
|
| So long as TSMC and Samsung remain competitive (note, this
| doesn't mean better, just close enough -- better is also fine),
| I expect the vast majority of AMD and Nvidia chips to be
| manufactured by those two.
| redisman wrote:
| > It is unlikely that Nvidia and AMD will want to use Intel
| as their foundry.
|
| Why not? Nvidia seems to be very pragmatic in their foundry
| picks on what's available for example.
| jvalencia wrote:
| If the foundry business can create a competitive product that
| saves Nvidia/AMD manufacturing costs, they'll pay. Business
| allegiances change all the time when it impacts the bottom
| line.
| greggyb wrote:
| Yes. I didn't say that this wouldn't happen. I just
| observed that none of the three players among AMD, Nvidia,
| and Intel have an active interest in working together.
| Practicality will trump, but I suspect that given a choice
| among Intel and another closely-priced, competitive
| foundry, both AMD and Nvidia will choose the latter.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| If the Intel foundry business creates supply, even for
| people who are not Nvidia/AMD/Apple, they still win via
| increased competition on TSMC and Samsung.
| KoftaBob wrote:
| Couldn't you say the same about smartphone makers using
| Samsung's display panels, despite them being a direct
| competitor?
| User23 wrote:
| Taiwan is already China's anytime they want to take it. Every
| time the US games it out they get crushed.
| valuearb wrote:
| There is a cost to everything.
| flente wrote:
| Source?
| User23 wrote:
| https://news.yahoo.com/were-going-to-lose-fast-us-air-
| force-... and https://www.news.com.au/world/north-
| america/the-us-could-no-... come up easily and those are
| just some of the most recent. Happens every time.
|
| It helps of course that the PLA's primary objective is war
| fighting whereas outside of special operations the US
| military's priorities are more diversified.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > This is pretty bad for Taiwan geopolitically though... once
| US chipmakers have a plausible local manufacturing alternative,
| the US is less likely to risk WW3 by standing up to China
| if/when it tries to annex Taiwan.
|
| I doubt it changes much to the demise of modern world. The
| industry will still go down given that you have many, many,
| many more things in the semiconductor supply chain that is run
| by some single vendor in the world from Taiwan, and that
| includes consumables too.
|
| US may get a modern fab, or two, but it will still eventually
| run out of many know-how intensive inputs for those fabs.
| MangoCoffee wrote:
| judging from all the recent moves by TSMC with a fab in AZ and
| opening a Japan subsidiary. i believe the TSMC leadership have
| the same concern as you. the latest tech is probably going to
| stay in Taiwan but TSMC is spreading out to reduce the risk.
| thu2111 wrote:
| I'm bullish on Intel. Having an engineer at the top will fix all
| sorts of subtle problems quite quickly. Their manufacturing
| process for both 10nm and 7nm are now supposedly back on track,
| and yet they have a large backlog of designs waiting for the new
| processes to ramp up. We may see rapid performance increases from
| them now their pipeline is unblocked.
|
| Additionally, US politics is now aligning across the aisle
| against China, and relying too heavily on TSMC looks like a
| potential future geopolitical problem. Intel is the only firm
| that can realistically keep up or out-fab TSMC and thus the USG
| will be loathe to let it even look like it might fail. Simply
| having fabs physically within your territory but managed by a
| remote firm, is clearly no substitute for having fabs actually
| managed by a domestic company (consider how many ways there must
| be to do the equivalent of SSH-ing into a fab, or otherwise
| subtly sabotage it from HQ).
| jcheng wrote:
| Is this year's claim of "supposedly back on track" more
| credible than every previous year's? (Honest question!)
| totalZero wrote:
| If the first thing Gelsinger does in the new role is to lie
| about progress, his credibility will be ruined.
|
| Conversely, if he were to say "it's worse than I feared," he
| won't personally be blamed because the problem preceded his
| return to Intel.
|
| So I think the claim can be viewed with a greater sense of
| honesty than before.
| valuearb wrote:
| He just announced another delay to 7 nm.
| hctaw wrote:
| > Their manufacturing process for both 10nm and 7nm are now
| supposedly back on track, and yet they have a large backlog of
| designs waiting for the new processes to ramp up
|
| From what (little) I know of the industry this isn't a good
| sign. Engineers working on the fab processes and packaging have
| to work closely with designers throughout the product design
| cycle, repeatedly taping out variations to fit onto the process
| as it is built out.
|
| That's part of why Intel historically used the tick/tock design
| cycle, designing a new thing to be built on a new process has a
| multiplicative effect on the time to market because of the way
| the unknown-unknowns of both sides impact each other, and the
| large amount of specialized labor to mitigate everything.
|
| It doesn't help that they lost a ton of institutional knowledge
| over the last decade to their competitors through layoffs
| disproportionately hitting senior staff.
| genericone wrote:
| The way I've heard it is that the layoffs were
| strategically/discriminatorily targeting senior staff,
| because of course they are the ones with the most
| institutional knowledge and therefore paid the most.
| agloeregrets wrote:
| > Intel is the only firm that can realistically keep up or out-
| fab TSMC
|
| Samsung?
|
| Realistically, Intel needs a route to actually playing at
| TSMC's game, currently they are instead working on paying TSMC
| to make them chips.
|
| Also, nitpick here, but the TSMC problem is that China might
| roll in tanks, not that China controls it. Realistically
| speaking, it's a reasonable cause for US millitary involvement
| if China did. Lol, there's my World War III Shark-jump Theory:
| TSMC.
| onepointsixC wrote:
| Intel's new GPU's need the all the advantages they can get to
| survive market entry. When Intel's process is ready,
| shipping, and better then they can switch.
| agloeregrets wrote:
| From a product perspective, totally agree, but from a
| strategy perspective, Intel getting to a level of beating
| TSMC is very very far off. Currently they are funding the
| development of the next chip that will beat them elsewhere.
|
| Personally, if Xe production funds TSMC's 3nm node that
| will be bought out by Apple and AMD then Intel probably
| should realize that the limited money they will make from
| GPUs will be dwarfed by the losses from improving their
| competition.
| dathinab wrote:
| Through don't forget that due to TSCM being overloaded with
| requests and Intel having their own fabs they can still
| sell chips for (for them) good prices even if they are
| worse.
|
| In the end getting a CPU is normally more important then
| getting the best CPU.
| MangoCoffee wrote:
| >TSMC problem is that China might roll in tanks
|
| TSMC have fab in China and currently building one in the US.
| TSMC is also opening an expansion in Japan.
| https://www.reuters.com/article/us-taiwan-tsmc/tsmc-to-
| raise...
|
| the latest tech is probably going to stay in Taiwan but
| judging from all the recent moves by TSMC. it look like they
| are spreading their wings to reduce the risk.
| madspindel wrote:
| Not just the US. 8% of the manufacturing is done in EU when
| like 90% of the global supply is made with European ASML
| machines... I don't think it was a coincidence that Gelsinger
| mentioned national security, EU, and ASML in his speech.
| craigjb wrote:
| Keep in mind, a semiconductor fab has hundreds of other
| machines and equipment involved, and US companies are some of
| the biggest suppliers (Applied Materials, Lam Research, KLA-
| Tencor--all multi-billion dollar companies).
|
| Lithography is definitely key, but all the equipment and
| process must work together.
| BeetleB wrote:
| > Having an engineer at the top will fix all sorts of subtle
| problems quite quickly.
|
| Note that Intel's current fab problems were well underway when
| there was an engineer on top, and that engineer was a fab
| person. Pat is not.
| onepointsixC wrote:
| Same here. This looks like the exactly the right move Intel
| needed.
|
| I don't think enough people fully appreciate that just about
| the entire world's leading edge supply is located within cruise
| missile range of China. The CCP could cripple the global
| economy in under an hour. Having supply chains out of their
| reach is not a nice to have, it is a must.
| MarkSweep wrote:
| I assume that China uses some TSMC chips. Though their "Made
| in China 2025" plan involves creating more of their own
| chips.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| My take is kinda the opposite. It is like a WWII movie where the
| ship is rudderless and the enemy submarine is circling around and
| they're wondering if they need one or two torpedoes to finish it
| off and the captain is on the bridge shouting that the king is
| still on the throne and the pound is still worth a pound.
|
| Intel becoming the best foundry in the world might be the only
| way they can sell vastly more chips, but it's not easy; and it's
| not being headed by a turnaround king, but rather the master of
| harvesting (why is there still vmware around since virtualization
| became a feature of chips and operating systems?)
| mathgorges wrote:
| > (why is there still vmware around since virtualization became
| a feature of chips and operating systems?)
|
| Because VMware (mostly through acquisitions) makes a whole
| bunch of other stuff now too.
| anyfoo wrote:
| > why is there still vmware around since virtualization became
| a feature of chips and operating systems?
|
| Because, besides the need for a frontend, there's a lot of
| devices to emulate.
| xxpor wrote:
| Any even then, it's like asking why VMWare still exists when
| qemu is out there for free. Completely different markets.
| walterclifford wrote:
| > why is there still vmware around since virtualization became
| a feature of chips and operating systems?
|
| If you take a look at https://www.vmware.com/products.html
| you'll note the majority of VMware's products are NOT related
| to compute virtualization (and a very significant entry from
| that category, vSphere Hypervisor, is given away for free).
| windexh8er wrote:
| > why is there still vmware around since virtualization became
| a feature of chips and operating systems?
|
| I'd have to say - if you think VMware is delivering only
| virtualization to their customers then you probably haven't
| looked at their portfolio as of recent.
|
| They have over 60 unique products that target many different
| areas of compute in the enterprise. Gelsinger is generally
| attributed for keeping VMware relevant. Not everybody is a
| consumer of a hyperscaler and some customers want extended
| enterprise functionality for virtualized (VM and containers)
| environments.
| gumby wrote:
| Geslinger was smart to reference Grove: I think people at all
| levels of Intel finally realize that their ship is on fire and
| are willing to change. I believe the M1, though costing them a
| very small amount of sales, was the true wake up call, despite
| being just the most recent arrow from a flock of arrows that has
| been piercing Intel for _decades_.
|
| If Intel can pull this off it will be one of the most impressive
| recoveries in history, up there with Watson at IBM, Gerstner at
| IBM, and Jobs' return to Apple.
|
| And if Intel can pull this off I wonder if someone will be able
| to do the same for GE.
| DetroitThrow wrote:
| First time I've felt cautiously optimistic about 'Intel the
| company' in 10+ years. I think it's possible Intel makes a
| comeback, but it'll be several years. Hope the new IBM research
| partnership becomes more integrated as well, I can only imagine
| positive outcomes from trying to consolidate fundamental semi
| research there.
|
| Compared to GE... there's been more structural changes to GE
| over the years which would hurt its ability to regain a useful
| position in vertical integration from where they're at - they
| need multiple decades of long term planning to get around this,
| especially as their industrial side becomes increasingly
| costly. This is unlike Intel, who is still in a "good" position
| to pivot on the reality that x86 is a lot less valuable
| compared to 2009 into a more up-to-date vertical monopoly.
| N1H1L wrote:
| Is Su at AMD on par with those giants?
| gumby wrote:
| Yes, it was an oversight on my part.
| nrp wrote:
| Don't forget Lisa Su's turnaround of AMD as a more proximate
| example!
| gumby wrote:
| Yes, that's an excellent one too!
| ZeroCool2u wrote:
| I'm sorry, I was totally on board and in full agreement with
| your comment until you mentioned IBM. Am I correct in
| understanding you're calling Watson a successful recovery for
| IBM? Jobs returning to Apple, sure. But I don't think I know
| anyone that would describe IBM as anything other than a
| flagging behemoth. Please, feel free to convince me otherwise,
| maybe I missed something.
| gumby wrote:
| I mean Thomas J. Watson Sr (turned CTR into IBM) and Thomas J
| Watson Jr (turned IBM into a computer company), not the dumb
| software platform that the sad, current IBM is overselling.
| Perhaps you didn't realize why the program bears that name.
|
| Gerstner was astonishing too. I just thought of him as the
| "cookie guy" when he showed up. But he saved a company that
| was spiraling towards the ground...he didn't restore it to
| its former glory but did bring it back to a successful life.
| An achievement subsequently squandered.
| ZeroCool2u wrote:
| Oh, that makes so much more sense. Thanks so much for
| clarifying!
| kken wrote:
| I guess he referred to Thomas J. Watson, not the "AI" Watson.
| whatusername wrote:
| You missed what Waston was named after.
|
| https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-history/silicon-
| revolution/bu...
|
| S/360 was/is a big deal in history.
| [deleted]
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