[HN Gopher] Intel Foundry Services and Arm announce collaboratio...
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Intel Foundry Services and Arm announce collaboration on SoC design
Author : mepian
Score : 354 points
Date : 2023-04-12 13:09 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.intel.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.intel.com)
| DeathArrow wrote:
| So Intel might use TSMC's better process for some of its own CPUs
| while fabbing ARM CPUs in its foundries?
| sharedbeans wrote:
| These are processes several years down the line. Intel is
| saying their processes will be competitive at that point.
| vrglvrglvrgl wrote:
| [dead]
| spiralpolitik wrote:
| Huge world-view shift from Intel. Likely the precursor to
| splitting the fab part of Intel from the design part with the
| intention of spinning one or the other off.
|
| It also underscores the reality that Intel doesn't think it can
| keep its fabs busy/profitable with just its own designs anymore.
| belval wrote:
| > Intel doesn't think it can keep its fabs busy/profitable with
| just its own designs anymore
|
| Intel has been saying so for the last 2-3 years.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Not super unexpected though. Pat Gelsinger has been teasing
| this move[0] for as long as he's been CEO, and it makes sense.
| The industry is verging on RISC again, and Intel _does_ have
| meaningful knowledge they can apply here. If their business
| model is right, it could be a profitable side pot.
|
| Honestly, this says less about Intel's desperation to me and
| more about ARM's. Just a few months ago they were rushing to
| renegotiate their contracts, and there have been rumblings for
| a while about ARM's eventual response to RISC-V. They know they
| need buy-in from legacy companies to make ARM a lasting ISA,
| simply trusting Apple not to throw them under the bus will get
| them PowerPC'd in an instant.
|
| [0] https://www.macworld.com/article/677947/intels-ceo-wants-
| app...
| adrianmonk wrote:
| Now that you mention RISC-V, maybe a bolder move from Intel
| would have been to throw their weight behind RISC-V and try
| to be the leader of the new tech instead of a co-leader of
| the old tech.
|
| On the other hand, ARM is very popular right now, and maybe
| Intel feels like what it needs right now is to take some of
| that market to deprive competing fabs of revenue and give
| itself better economies of scale.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| >a bolder move from Intel would have been to throw their
| weight behind RISC-V
|
| Intel axed their involvement with RISC-V.[1]
|
| [1]: https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/30/intel_ris_v_pat
| hfinde...
| snvzz wrote:
| They will still release some devboard with chips co-
| designed with SiFive, and offer their foundries to
| clients who want to fab chips based on RISC-V.
|
| Just not under the Pathfinder program.
| klelatti wrote:
| This seems absolutely inevitable.
|
| If IFS is serious it needs to be fabbing SoC's with Arm CPUs and
| to be as competitive as possible with TSMC.
|
| Nothing forces IFS to make Arm CPU's that compete with Intel's
| desktop and server products.
|
| Of course, the two companies have a long history of collaboration
| including Intel having an Arm architecture license via StrongARM.
| There is an interesting anecdote from Robin Saxby of Arm about
| when Steve Jobs phoned him and tried to persuade him to block the
| sale of StrongARM to Intel but Saxby convinced Jobs otherwise.
| pavlov wrote:
| Intel sold off Xscale (nee StrongARM) just before the
| touchscreen smartphone boom started. Seems like they would have
| been well positioned to take the lead in this market. Probably
| Apple would have used an Xscale SOC for the iPhone if Intel had
| taken it seriously.
|
| Strategic blunder of the century so far?
| anecdotal1 wrote:
| Intel actually designed a CPU for the iPhone. Apple didn't
| use it because it failed to meet their performance/thermal
| requirements. Intel was not happy about this.
| pavlov wrote:
| Was it an x86 core rather than Xscale?
| sharedbeans wrote:
| Sourcing for this? This is a very under-reported story IMO,
| the main source we have is self-serving comments from the
| guy who screwed it up saying "we passed because it wasn't
| going to be profitable at the projected volumes". But I
| don't see how Intel would have even been capable of being
| the sort of partner that mobile SoC development requires.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| But Intel did respond with x86 SoCs for smartphones.
| Merrifield, Moorefield and Airmont.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| And they were plagued with compatibility and performance
| problems.
|
| Almost bought my niece an Android tablet with an x86 CPU.
| They were priced super low. Turns out there was a reason
| for that. Apps ran like shit and any games written using
| the Android NDK just straight-up didn't work.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| I still have an Asus android tablet with an Intel CPU,
| circa 2014.
|
| It wasn't that great then and it deserves death now. Zero
| ability to upgrade or get third party OS on it due to those
| processors not taking off.
| wmf wrote:
| Intel doesn't invest in anything besides x86. They let XScale
| languish while they owned it and even if the iPhone used
| XScale, Intel still would have found a reason to under-invest
| in it.
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| Xscale sale was announced 7 months before the iPhone was
| announced, but presumably way after work had started and
| Apple had asked Intel for a processor. A truly poor decision.
|
| > There was just one problem: The PC era was about to end.
| Apple was already working on the iPhone, which would usher in
| the modern smartphone era. Intel turned down an opportunity
| to provide the processor for the iPhone, believing that Apple
| was unlikely to sell enough of them to justify the
| development costs.
|
| https://www.vox.com/2016/4/20/11463818/intel-iphone-
| mobile-r...
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| > 7 months before the iPhone was announced, but presumably
| way after work had started and Apple had asked Intel for a
| processor
|
| You say that as if Intel should have known that the iPhone
| would be an explosive hit. They probably assumed it would
| be yet another Blackberry competitor, not really a threat
| to their desktop hegemony.
| sumtechguy wrote:
| That at that time would not have been a bad take.
|
| The big telcos were handing out data in miserly amounts
| and eye bleeding prices (think 50 bucks for 1MB then
| another 30-50 for SMS). AT&T was willing to pair with an
| unlimited plan set the iPhone wildly ahead of all the
| other phones in that category. VZ messed up big on that
| one. They were touting how amazing their network was
| meanwhile their competition was letting people surf the
| net from their phone. VZ was meanwhile still charging
| silly rates for SMS. Meanwhile I could open a connection
| on an iPhone and use an online chat service or the
| unlimited SMS. All of the other phones from that time
| could do similar things. It was the per month charge that
| people balked at to do simple internet things. Then on
| top of that it was _apple_ so it had a bit of cool to go
| with it. I personally think though without that data plan
| the thing would have been a dud.
| nordsieck wrote:
| > The big telcos were handing out data in miserly amounts
| and eye bleeding prices (think 50 bucks for 1MB then
| another 30-50 for SMS). AT&T was willing to pair with an
| unlimited plan set the iPhone wildly ahead of all the
| other phones in that category.
|
| From what I recall, the original iPhone only supported
| 2G, while contemporary phones supported 3G. I remember a
| lot of criticism around the iPhone web experience because
| of that, even though the interface was clearly superior
| to everyone who used it.
|
| It looks like there were relatively competitive data
| plans available[1] that offered unlimited data. I'm not
| really convinced that that was the problem.
|
| ---
|
| 1. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2007/04/data-plans-
| the-barri...
| faeriechangling wrote:
| Think of why the iPhone existed in the first place. It
| was because Jobs saw the writing on the wall and knew
| that cell phones were bound to destroy the market for the
| iPod, Apple's moneymaker. Before making the iPhone, he
| made the Rokr and Jobs threw massive amounts of resources
| into the iPhone at large risk to Apple. He bought up the
| patent for multi touch back in 2005.
|
| I honestly think people overlook this aspect of Jobs
| leadership, basically from the time he returned on Apple
| he doubled down on mobile computing repeatedly throwing
| 50% of Apple's marketing budget into the unproven iPod
| for instance. Why was Jobs able to see the writing on the
| wall and not Intel? I think Steve Jobs himself said it
| best:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4VBqTViEx4
|
| Intel itself was NOT totally blindsided by the mobile
| revolution. Intel Atom development started in 2004. Intel
| Atom could have dominated the market. There were Intel
| Execs pushing Atom. But all the R&D was pumped into the
| desktop and server business, the quality silicon was
| reserved for the desktop and server business, Intels
| execs didn't want these inexpensive chips for what were
| presumed to be peoples secondary computers to cannibalise
| its expensive desktop and server chips, and the strategic
| vision was simply bad. You can apologise for it but the
| mistake may have doomed the entire business and plenty of
| companies did not make the same mistake.
|
| Intel wouldn't even exist if they didn't already make
| such a shift away from the memory market into the
| microprocessor market firing most of the their company in
| the process. Intel had leaders with strategic vision and
| guts back in the day, and the senior leadership simply
| weren't good enough to commit to mobile when that bridge
| had to be crossed.
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| They didn't have to know that the iPhone would have been
| an explosive hit, but they should have seen that Smart
| Phone/PDA like device sales were increasing at 30-50% a
| year at that time, and there was a definite feeling that
| this was the future.
|
| Even if the iPhone wasn't an explosive hit and the
| smartphone growth didn't explode, 10% of Blackberries
| market would have meant millions of processors sold to
| Apple in the first years and any other Blackberry
| competitor that was interested,
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > there was a definite feeling that this was the future
|
| Some people thought that, yeah. But not everybody, and
| not on the same places Intel sold their chips to.
|
| Anyway, Intel sold their foundry exactly because its
| unitary profit was way too small for them. Since then,
| the company only got more expensive, so they wouldn't be
| able to keep it.
| gumby wrote:
| I don't want to defend Intel, but Apple's own announced
| hope at the time of the iphone introduction was to
| "eventually reach 1% of the phone market".
| Nevermark wrote:
| Apple was just reassuring customers and the market, by
| telling them that their tiny size and newbie market
| status was an advantage, not a disadvantage.
|
| But they clearly had high ambitions for their new
| revolutionary ergonomic mobile "phone" + "music player" +
| "internet". They wanted to define a new indispensable
| market and they wanted to own it. They already had a
| multi-year product path and design pipeline for regular
| major upgrades in place.
|
| The iPhone was intended to be a "next big thing" from the
| start.
|
| And it seems unlikely Steve was selling Intel on doing a
| new chip for 1% of the phone market. He was telling Intel
| this was the future, in some form.
|
| Apple was an objective market demonstration, with no
| ambiguity, that there was now a need for low-power first
| (as apposed to speed first) that would got to other
| suppliers if Intel didn't move.
|
| This was a leadership failure at Intel. They happen.
| hollerith wrote:
| I always thought it was a response to other cell-phone
| makers integrating music-player functionality into their
| cell phones, threatening Apple's music-player revenue
| stream.
| gumby wrote:
| Me too. Ballmer's reaction to the iphone was not
| obviously stupid at the time, especially given Microsft's
| business model of direct enterprise sales.
| petra wrote:
| ARM is open. So that means they would have to compete with
| the whole world both on chip design, and fabbing, for a low
| power chip, with margins lower than what they are used to.
|
| Sucsess(as measured in valuation back than, not today,
| that's how managers measure themselves), was far from
| certain.
| mdellabitta wrote:
| ARM is not open... You can license the IP.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| Right. Big company disease caused Intel to miss the
| biggest CPU market and relegated to big metal servers
| because they got undercut. It's still a miss for the
| business and the CEO regardless of how managers/VPs
| measure themselves. CEOs are supposed to take a longer
| term strategic view. Since the mobile revolution Intel
| stock peaked at 2x from before 2007 while Qualcomm has
| done about 2x better than them. Of course part of that is
| cellular chips / licensing. But there's also other CPUs
| that were competing with Qualcomm. Maybe that's why Intel
| didn't bother to compete (Qualcomm SoC is CPU+cellular if
| I recall correctly).
|
| It's still a lesson on the importance of keeping a
| foothold for the lowest volume market even if you're not
| making any money as long as the cost is sustainable -
| cutting every unprofitable part of the business leaves
| you for disruption. Same thing happened to Microsoft with
| smartphones and Google with social.
| szundi wrote:
| Sadly staying in everything is death by a thousand cuts.
| It is hard to have all the strategies at once.
|
| Magic is finding out what of those can fly and it is not
| a manager but a leader quality to do well with new
| fields. Although sometimes managers feel the obvious
| moves for the short term sometimes better.
| jacobr1 wrote:
| It is also a lesson for the cost-cutting that is popular
| right now. Sure, trim fat and waste - but R&D and and
| test projects in new areas are important for future
| potential markets. Keep some of that alive even it
| currently isn't profitable so that you have paths to
| future markets.
| mepian wrote:
| >Of course part of that is cellular chips / licensing.
| But there's also other CPUs that were competing with
| Qualcomm. Maybe that's why Intel didn't bother to compete
| (Qualcomm SoC is CPU+cellular if I recall correctly).
|
| Intel had a cellular modem business which they formed in
| 2011 and sold to Apple in 2019.
| qwytw wrote:
| > ARM is open
|
| Qualcomm still has a 60-70%+ market share in the $300+
| Android phone market and their gross profit margin was
| similar to Intel until last year so it's obviously
| doable. And XScale/Intel was probably the best positioned
| company to dominate the ARM SoC market back in the mid
| 2000s.
| stefan_ wrote:
| Well they also have success in WiFi & Cellular,
| ironically two markets that Intel also participated in
| _and never succeeded in doing anything, ever_. Truly an
| astonishingly mismanaged company.
| szundi wrote:
| I feel that when every management book starts do bring up
| a company as an example, one should just sell the stocks
| in 2-3 years. Like Intel and its OKRs.
| oblak wrote:
| It only cost Otellini his cushy job
| baybal2 wrote:
| Non-touchscreen smartphone boom been going for years prior.
|
| The problem was that embedded OS-es like Symbian, A200,
| PalmOS were running circles around Windows Mobile. Most of
| them used Samsung SoCs which were few times slower than
| StrongARM.
|
| StrongARM was seen exclusively in the context of it being
| used to "lift" extremely bloated WinMo smartphones, and was
| otherwise thought as an overkill for other uses.
| omneity wrote:
| To me this seems to be an attempt to leverage their dominant
| position at the time to further strengthen it, and eventually
| failing to strong-arm the industry.
| baq wrote:
| The biggest mistake of Paul Ottelini for sure. The world
| would look very, very different if he said yes.
| lr1970 wrote:
| Before becoming Intel's CEO Paul Otellini served as
| executive VP of sales and marketing. This uber-blunder is a
| great example what happens when you let a "bean-counter"
| run a tech company.
|
| EDIT: corrected factual error. Paul was never a CFO but
| much of his career was in sales and marketing. Sales do
| count as "bean-counters" because their main metric are
| counting PaL.
| bushbaba wrote:
| Disagree. The Sales leaders are generally also looking
| for continued growth 3 years out. Sales know there's
| sprints but you are also running a marathon where
| continued growth YoY is expected. They should have seen
| the smartphone potential and started chipping away to
| grow their base long term.
|
| Similar to why the best sales leaders only do deals where
| there's renewal possibilities in 2-3 years out.
| klelatti wrote:
| That's not correct. Otellini did not serve as CFO at any
| time and did not have a finance background. Please check
| your facts before making a comment like this.
|
| Edit: I see you've changed your comment without
| acknowledgment. Still wrong 'sales and marketing' isn't
| 'bean counting' and Otellini had extensive 'tech'
| experience.
| lr1970 wrote:
| Thanks for pointing out a factual error. I corrected it
| and added explicit EDIT paragraph.
| svnt wrote:
| I mean you should probably just own the whole mistake --
| in no world are bean-counters sales people.
|
| https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/bean-
| cou...
| voidfunc wrote:
| Have their been any successful major companies run by
| former CFOs? My experience here is that it is often a
| death sentence via a long road or stagnation.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Some of their worst years were under Krzanich, who had an
| engineering background... I think it is hard to guess
| who'll be a good CEO for a tech company. Someone like
| Lisa Su with a background in engineering but also lots of
| R&D seems like the best pick. The CEO doesn't need to do
| the i-dotting, t-crossing engineering stuff anyway,
| having a good idea conceptual of what is upcoming and
| possible is more important.
| TylerE wrote:
| Seems like what you need is a triumvirate... an idea guy
| (The Jobs), a tech guy (The Wozniak), and a 3rd person
| who's main job is to keep the first two from killing each
| other, and ideally a sense for operations and PR.
| mepian wrote:
| Jobs wasn't too bad at tech, he passed Al Alcorn's job
| interview at Atari after all.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > The collaboration will focus on mobile SoC designs first, but
| allow for potential design expansion into automotive, Internet
| of Things (IoT), data center, aerospace and government
| applications.
|
| Take a note on the wording. They are definitely making a mobile
| SoC for somebody, with Qualcomm being the likeliest client.
|
| But then they instantly dilute it with other buzzwords, and try
| to break the line of thinking how it will compete with Intel's
| own products.
| klelatti wrote:
| 'Data center' doesn't necessarily mean Xeon competitors.
| okdood64 wrote:
| From what I understand Arm for servers is not really a thing
| right now. What sorts of industry shifts would it take for this
| adoption? What would be the challenges?
| franga2000 wrote:
| It's very much a thing! AWS and GCP and Oracle have had it
| for years, probably others as well. Just a few days ago,
| Hetzner launched Ampere based VPS.
| qwytw wrote:
| Why? AWS has Gravitron and Ampere seems to be growing fast
| both seem to be very competitive in certain uses cases.
| hashtag-til wrote:
| This is the definitive comment in this thread ^.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| IFS needs to branch off of Intel's umbrella as an independent
| Fab competing with TSMC, vertical integration for Intel has
| failed to compete in last 5 years.
| TylerE wrote:
| I recently went from a massive Intel gaming rig (10000 series
| i9, 3080, and the 1200w powersupply to match) to a the basic
| $1999 Mac Studio (albeit joined with the several 2TB external
| SSDs from the old machine).
|
| Night and day... and the Mac is actually faster for programming
| type stuff and the audio stuff I mess around with - on top of
| being a much more pleasant environment for both.
|
| Even for gaming it's a lot more competent than you'd expect,
| especially for games that have been ported to Silicon. WoW runs
| at over 100fps (NB: 1440p, 165hz gaming monitor) with settings
| turned up pretty high. Factorio runs awesome, and just got a
| silicon port that bumped performance another 20% or so.
|
| Obviously it's not so good at AAA games, but I have a PS5 for
| that, anyway. A lot more of my Steam library was avilable than
| I expected.. all the Paradox grand strategy stuff, lots of
| tycoon/city/base builders...
|
| On a day to day level it's just so much more plesant...
| effectively silent (not recording studio silent, there's a very
| very slight noise, but it's well below the noise floor if the
| household HVAC is running, or you have any sound at all
| playing.
|
| Even maxed out (like a chess engine using all cores) the fans
| barely come off idle and the machine temp peaks in the high
| 50s. At idle, it sites in the very low 30s, only 10c above
| ambient - and things that are on the edge of the SoC, like the
| RAM, are only 5c above ambient.
|
| Then old i0 beast would idle in the 60s and go all the way into
| the 90s under load, with fans sounding like jet turbines.
| pjungwir wrote:
| I'm curious if anyone has a similar story but running Linux
| instead of macOS? I have a DIY AMD 5600X system (128 GB RAM,
| two M.2 drives) that is fast but warm. In the summer it can
| be uncomfortable in my upstairs office, despite A/C. I could
| be tempted into trying an ARM workstation if I thought it
| would make a big difference on heat.
|
| I don't really do gaming, except occasional Minecraft with
| the kids. My GPU is a 10+ years old GeForce GTX 560, and it
| seems fine. (But maybe that only works with x64? I don't
| know.)
|
| I've already had a taste of Apple's ARM speeds with my M1
| Macbook Air. Running `make clean && make` on Postgres is
| practically instant. I don't understand what's going on there
| to make it so fast. But for my daily work I'd rather be in
| Xubuntu. Is anyone out there doing something similar?
| robberth wrote:
| No experience myself but I've heard good things about Asahi
| Linux (https://asahilinux.org/). Not sure how usable it
| already is as a daily driver.
| hammyhavoc wrote:
| Counterpoint to the "but I have a PS5 for that": if you
| develop video games or work in CAD every day, Macs just
| aren't a sensible option.
|
| Regarding recording studios, PCs are generally kept in a
| machine room away from everything else.
|
| Great that it works for you, but for a lot of creative
| industries, the Mac doesn't make sense in 2023.
| TylerE wrote:
| Yea, I'm aware how recording studios work. Those of us
| making amateur recordings at home don't always have the
| luxury.
| amelius wrote:
| I'm really curious what is holding CAD companies back to
| port their software to the Mac?
| hammyhavoc wrote:
| This is a great question that people were asking even
| 15-20 years ago, likely even before then too, but it was
| before my time in asking it.
|
| Essentially, the demand for CAD on Mac just isn't high
| enough to justify it, especially when anybody serious
| about CAD wants the absolute cutting edge of hardware,
| and the ability to expand upon it as soon as the rest of
| the industry is able to take advantage of the latest GPU.
| Being competitive is everything.
|
| It's never been a case of software needing to be ported.
| Some CAD apps have come and gone on Mac, but the demand
| just isn't there in terms of sales to make it worthwhile.
| That's not to say that there aren't CAD apps on Macs,
| there are, but the big boy industrial toys are elsewhere.
|
| Keep in mind we used to run Parallels and Bootcamp in the
| '00s to get Windows software on Macs!
| TylerE wrote:
| Plus the dominant platform (Soludworks) is totally built
| using MS UI libraries... ribbon, etc.
| andromeduck wrote:
| I thougt autocad was ported to M1?
| TylerE wrote:
| No one uses autocad anymore. It's as relevant to the
| modern CAD world as MS Basic is to us. Even the
| architects have moved on to stuff like Revit.
| terafo wrote:
| I'd assume their rendering enigne is written for single
| API, such as OpenGL or Vulkan. Porting it to metal would
| be quite large project.
| nine_k wrote:
| Isn't there a reasonable OpenGL shim on top of Vulkan?
| Gracana wrote:
| Cad programs barely work on the systems they're designed
| for. I love solidworks, but it's a real turd if you
| aren't using one of the correct "certified" driver for
| your graphics card.
| smolder wrote:
| How does this description of your hardware purchases relate
| to the post you replied to? Or to the news article?
|
| Yes, the 10900k as the biggest 14nm consumer chip was a power
| guzzler and is bad compared to Intel/AMD/Apples current line
| up on new processes.
| oblak wrote:
| These 10900k or 11 series anecdotes always crack me up. I
| switched from M1 Pro to Ryzen 6800H and it feels just as
| fast as the much more expensive apple laptop. It's not even
| using TSMC 5nm like the new Zen 4 parts.
| greenknight wrote:
| I think the majority of what made the M1 lineup so
| successful, was that they were on TSMC's 5nm before
| anyone else, and had that exclusivity.
|
| November 2020 the m1 mac mini was released... September
| 2022 was when Zen4 came along, the next CPU to use the
| same node. Nearly a full 2 years.
|
| Cinebench scores... The M1 Ultra got 24189
| multithreaded... not that impressive but its tdp is
| 60w... at 65w the 7950x (eco mode) scored 31308 in the
| same test, down from 38291 at full power usage (170w).
|
| It will be interesting to see if apple pushes for another
| exclusivity deal with TSMC for 3nm.
| oblak wrote:
| AMD is yet to release a TSMC 5nm mobile part (low power
| 5nm), so the exclusive foundry lead Apple's been paying
| for is more like 2.5 years. It is my understanding that
| things are pretty much the same with TSMC's 3nm node.
| Apple's lead is all but guaranteed for at least a couple
| more years.
| pkaye wrote:
| > Even for gaming it's a lot more competent than you'd
| expect, especially for games that have been ported to
| Silicon. WoW runs at over 100fps (NB: 1440p, 165hz gaming
| monitor) with settings turned up pretty high. Factorio runs
| awesome, and just got a silicon port that bumped performance
| another 20% or so.
|
| WoW doesn't need much hardware to run. What is the fps on the
| gaming rig for comparison?
| TylerE wrote:
| About the same. It's cpunlikited not gpu. But either is
| plenty of gps combined with an adaptive refresh rate
| monitor... even the studio hits the monitors 165hz cap
| indoors, and it's 100+ in most out door zones... some of
| the ones with tons of fog get it down into maybe the 80s,
| but it's still really smooth... no jitter or
| microstuttering.
| a_carbon_rod wrote:
| I made a similar transition as you earlier this year from a
| i7 8700k/GTX 1080 Ti Windows desktop to a Mac Studio and much
| like you I'm very happy with that decision for a lot of the
| reasons you already described.
|
| One of the more interesting aspects of the switch I hadn't
| considered though is that it actually (positively) impacted
| my power bill - I'm paying about $5-$10 less per month since
| the switch.
|
| The difference in form factor is welcome as well - some days
| I find myself astonished at how much power fits in such a
| (relatively) small box on my desk.
| faeriechangling wrote:
| The Mac Studio was a bit of a sleeper. For AI inferencing
| at 128gb it is higher performance than any affordable
| consumer solution with that much memory available, it's
| quiet, it's small, it's power efficient, it supports 5
| displays. It costs a lot less than an equivalent MBP.
| TylerE wrote:
| It's the desktop a lot of us having been waiting for...
| no built in screen, no forced purchase of hundreds of
| dollars in "magic (i.e. garbage) keyboard/mouse), and
| ports out the wazoo... even the base model I have has 4x
| Thunderbolt 4, 4x USB 3 (two Type C on the front, 2 Type
| A on the back), 10Gb eth, even a headphone jack and SD
| slot.
| IndrekR wrote:
| Interesting comment about the Apple keyboard. I have
| bought Apple Magic keyboards for all my Windows machines.
| Need a correct driver to make the fn key work and remap
| the delete key, but otherwise I have not yet found a
| better TKL keyboard.
| TylerE wrote:
| Hotswap mechanical or nothing for me. I hate low travel
| keys (and flat keycaps).
|
| I actually just bought this last week for the work
| machine..
|
| https://www.keychron.com/products/keychron-k8-pro-qmk-
| via-wi...
|
| Not as good as the board on my personal PC, but that is a
| highly tweaked out, kit built, full metal gasket mount
| board that I have _mumble_ hundreds of dollars in to...
| margorczynski wrote:
| Still the performance vs price seems pretty bad. From what
| I see their 10 core 500GB SSD + 32GB RAM costs as much as a
| 7950X (16 cores) + RX 7900XT + 64GB RAM + 1TB SSD which
| should have better performance and you can actually play
| AAA games (at very high performance and quality, also 4k).
|
| I like Apple stuff (I have an iPhone, MBP) but their high-
| end stuff is really overpriced for what it offers.
| TylerE wrote:
| Well, let's try to compare like for like...
|
| 7950x = $599 7900XT = $800 64GB of RAM = $150
|
| Thats' $1550 right there, before motherboard, storage,
| case, cooling, powersupply, etc. By the time you add all
| that (plus labor, either in dollars or in time) I bet
| you're in the $3500 range with those specs.
|
| You have to consider the total package... the Studio is
| 7" x 7" x 4"... that's smaller than a microATX board,
| never mind some giant dual slot graphics card (Which also
| draws 300w btw, over 3x what the entire Studio draws).
|
| Lack of noise, heat, and power efficiency has real value.
| Some of us are at a point where we want stuff that _just
| works_ , not to fiddle with components and BIOs settings.
| Plus, frankly, nobody on the PC side has anything even
| close to Applecare.
| margorczynski wrote:
| I think you went way overboard with the costs - a good
| AM5 MOBO is around $200, case $150, AIO cooling or good
| fan $100 and a good PSU would be $200. That's a total of
| $650. Add to that assembly and sanity checking for let's
| say $100 (many times it comes free for these upper end
| setups) and we get $750.
|
| That's a total, with your estimates for the CPU and GPU
| prices, of $2300 which is around $1000 lower than the
| Studio while having more power. I agree the power
| efficiency is worse but also note that the Mac simply
| doesn't have access to the same compute power. Also the
| CPU and GPU are redlined by default and going down to
| almost 50% TDP only causes a 5% drop in performance so it
| is not that bad.
|
| Of course there are advantages that you mentioned (form
| factor, better support) but, at least for me, that is not
| worth a $1k+ premium. Also using MacOS for me at least is
| a pain compared to Linux.
| TylerE wrote:
| You're comparing against the ultra. I'm using (and
| talking) about the base model Max, which is $1999 all in.
| (The Ultra is 20 core, btw. It's essentially two Maxes
| fused together.)
|
| I will agree that the Ultra ($3999) is probably not a
| great value for most people, since outside of synthetic
| benchmarks, it's usually more like 10-20% faster, not
| 100%, as outside of editing 8k video or AI, there really
| isn't much that scales well to that many threads.
| faeriechangling wrote:
| Chess Engines I've got to say are an argument against Apple
| Silicon, at the same power draw any AMD or Intel solution is
| going to beat the pants off of it.
| TylerE wrote:
| Seems super fast to me? Benchmarking now...
|
| bench 1024 8 26 in latest stockfish (well, whatever brew
| installed two days ago)
|
| Total time (ms) : 128108 Nodes searched : 1605433485
| Nodes/second : 12531875
|
| 12,531,875 NPS is competitive with a 2950x threadripper,
| which is an $1100 cpu with a TDP of 180w. The M1 Max has a
| power draw under load of about 90w max (and that's the full
| SoC), but under typical high loads it's more like 50-60w.
| faeriechangling wrote:
| 2950x is a weird comparison when it was two generations
| older than what AMD had available at the time. Also the
| 2950x still did 37422972 NPS which is still roughly 3x
| higher. I think it goes without saying that if you look
| back enough generations you will eventually find an
| AMD/Intel product that gives less performance/watt.
|
| The 5950x was also available for sale at the time, a
| system based on it was cheaper, and it does 54029460 NPS
| in stockfish which is over 4x faster.
|
| It's not like the Mac Studio is too slow for chess
| engines to be usable for purposes like analysis, but the
| thing is if you make that argument than why not get a
| much cheaper Ryzen 5 or Intel i5 based system which is
| still faster than the Mac Studio? Say a Ryzen 5600g which
| is also pretty power efficient and can fit in a nice
| little box and push a few displays?
|
| https://openbenchmarking.org/test/pts/stockfish&eval=7596
| 252...
| TylerE wrote:
| Because running chess engines is like 0.5% of what I use
| a computer for.
| nine_k wrote:
| I'd say that much of the M2 speed comes from its ultrawide
| RAM interface, only possible because RAM is soldered
| basically directly to the CPU die(s). It can't scale to
| server sizes, but it makes perfect sense for a laptop or a
| smaller desktop.
| ChancyChance wrote:
| The only real Arm competitor to Intel servers is Ampere. There
| are literally thousands of customers to TSMC that Intel can
| serve, as long as they don't just focus on whales. Gelsinger
| needs to realize intel isn't in the pole position and hasn't
| been for a years, but he keeps acting like it.
| HPsquared wrote:
| "Competition is for losers"
| meragrin_ wrote:
| Intel Foundry Services (IFS) specifically.
| mepian wrote:
| The original title says "Intel Foundry" but I had to make it
| fit into HN's character limit.
| primer42 wrote:
| Ahhh another example of the hardest problem in CS - naming
| things!
| bee_rider wrote:
| I wonder if this can be solved by coming up with the
| acronym you want (because let's be honest, the clever
| acronym is what matters) and asking ChatGPT to work out
| what it means.
| AstixAndBelix wrote:
| It's solved by asking Dang for a charitable exception
| mepian wrote:
| I can't edit the parent comment anymore so just for the
| context, my original title was "Intel and Arm Announce
| Multigeneration Collaboration on Leading-Edge SoC Design" and
| someone changed it to the current title.
| Rexogamer wrote:
| "Intel Foundry Services and Arm to collaborate on SoC
| design?"
| neogodless wrote:
| I might have abbreviated "Collab" instead.
| mnau wrote:
| I hope they can make money from IFS, because based on Intels
| lastest earnings, they can't even make money on their own designs
| made in their own fabs.
| tgtweak wrote:
| Glad that Pat is making good on his strategy to offer IFS to
| everyone, even bleeding edge process nodes. I really think this
| is the only way to truly mitigate the dependance on fabs that are
| entirely in the East China Sea region. If Intel can ensure that
| IP is safe between IFS and a potential competitor to Intel, then
| I think this is all for the better.
| lizknope wrote:
| I read the press release twice and it doesn't really say much.
| I'm a digital physical design engineer.
|
| What it probably means is that ARM will port their standard cells
| and memory compiler to Intel's process. The other IP like the ARM
| CPU's are delivered as Verilog RTL and a customer can synthesize
| them to standard cells using any foundry's standard cell library.
|
| When I worked at ARM they would work with any foundry even those
| that made competing IP. If my fabless semiconductor company
| decided to use Intel as our fab then we would still be using ARM
| CPUs in our chips. We aren't going to use Intel though based on
| Intel's prior history over the last 20 years of saying they will
| be a fab to external customers and then backing away and
| cancelling those plans. Based on talking to former coworkers most
| of the people talking to Intel as a fab are using it to negotiate
| lower prices with TSMC or Samsung.
| trustingtrust wrote:
| I wonder how this affects TSMCs business in the long run and if
| this is a move that is specifically geared towards foundries to
| come under US ownership. Interesting regardless.
| MangoCoffee wrote:
| more competition is better since Global Foundries drop out of
| 7nm and Samsung isn't doing any better.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Intel's first announced partnership to be a third party fab is
| to manufacture chips based on processes that were state of the
| art in 2013.
|
| TSMC doesn't have much to fear in the near future.
|
| Edit: I see where the confusion lies.
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickmoorhead/2022/08/10/inte...
|
| This was announced two years ago. Intel hasn't proven that it
| can be a third party manufacturer for anything close to cutting
| edge
|
| Intel announced they would be producing chips for MediaTek two
| years ago.
| pedrocr wrote:
| Are you perhaps confusing 18A with 18nm? 18A is 1.8nm and is
| scheduled for the second half of 2024.
| sct202 wrote:
| They're referencing the first round of IFS which launched
| in 2013 and never really became much of anything but had a
| lot of announcements and fanfare at the time. Their foundry
| would have been the most advanced available foundry
| processes at the time had it launched as planned. From Feb
| 2013: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-altera-intel-
| manufacturin...
| scarface74 wrote:
| Actually I was referencing the MediaTek announcement
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickmoorhead/2022/08/10/i
| nte...
| Aromasin wrote:
| What on earth are you talking about? The article is
| discussing partnering with Arm using their 18A node. At 20A,
| Intel will be transitioning from its FinFET design over to a
| new type of transistor, known as a Gate-All-Around
| transistor, or GAAFET. In Intel's case, the marketing name
| they are giving their version is RibbonFET. This is a
| technology that only started to come to a head in early 2020.
| The other arm of Intel's 20A and onwards design is what the
| company is calling 'PowerVia'. This is usually referred to as
| 'backside power delivery' in the industry. Although slightly
| older, we're still only talking about 2017 at the earliest.
|
| Intel has its 2nm node (called 20A, followed by 18A six
| months later) lined up for production to start in the first
| half of 2024, which compares to TSMC's equivalent node
| (called N2) which is scheduled for the second half of 2025.
| 18A will be half a node denser than N2, while also being 12
| months earlier to market.
|
| As to IFS as a concept, it's only recently been revamped in
| 2021 after a lackluster attempt in 2013 as you mentioned. So
| far they've announced partnerships with Arm, MediaTek,
| Qualcomm, AWS, and the DoD. That's a pretty heavy hitting
| pack, not including all of Tower Semiconductors customers.
| Intel wouldn't be building another 3 fabs if it wasn't
| serious this time about building capacity for other
| companies.
| aDfbrtVt wrote:
| Looks like Intel 4nm will only start shipping 2023H2. I'm
| not sure I see Intel 2nm shipping less than 6 months later,
| especially given Intel's recent history of stumbling on
| execution. How firm do you believe the 2024H2 delivery date
| of N2 to be?
| genmud wrote:
| Intel has missed so many deliverables that I take any of
| their statements with a healthy dose of skepticism.
|
| Like their 7nm process has been delayed, what? 4 times?
| Have they even shipped it? Its the same story they had with
| the 10nm process too. IIRC they were behind like 5-6 years
| on that one too.
| artimaeis wrote:
| Intel Raptor lake CPUs are widely available these days
| and are built on Intel 7N. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik
| i/Raptor_Lake?cmdf=intel+13th+...
| monocasa wrote:
| Intel 7 isn't their 7nm process, but their renamed 10nm
| process.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| TSMC 7nm HPC: 66M Transistors/mm^2 TSMC 7nm
| Mobile: 96M Transistors/mm^2 Intel 7: 100M
| Transistors/mm^2 TSMC 7nm+: 115M
| Transistors/mm^2
|
| It was perfectly fair for them to rename it, but yes, in
| the context of deliverables it's the same slipped process
| that used to be called 10nm.
| [deleted]
| baq wrote:
| Yeah Intel has had a great roadmap for the past decade.
| They haven't executed most of it and when they did, they
| were years late to market. They have a couple years to
| fix that or they'll live on government subsidies.
| nsteel wrote:
| > Arm, MediaTek, Qualcomm, AWS, and the DoD
|
| Remember that unlike the others, Arm won't be an actual
| customer here. They don't require any capacity themselves.
| fbn79 wrote:
| Interesting to know that "2nm" and "20A"(Armstrong) are
| just marketing names, they don't reflect physical sizes
|
| - see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2_nm_process#:~:text=T
| he%20ter...
| smolder wrote:
| Probably an autocorrect mishap, but in 20A the A is for
| angstrom.
| gibspaulding wrote:
| My understanding is that hasn't been the case for a long
| time now. Wikipedia is saying the last node actually
| measured by transistor length was from 1994.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiconductor_device_fabr
| ica...
| klelatti wrote:
| > 18A will be half a node denser than N2, while also being
| 12 months earlier to market.
|
| It would be interesting to hear what the consensus view is
| on Intel actually being able to meet this timetable. Surely
| a strong degree of scepticism is warranted given their
| recent record.
| chasil wrote:
| A recent interview with Shang-Yi Chiang, former Vice
| President of R&D at TSMC (also held positions at TI, HP,
| and SMIC) had insightful commentary on the speed of
| bringing up a new node.
|
| "We all take two years to develop one generation, how
| come you guys can do it in one or one-and-a-half year?"
| And they asked if some of your customer transfer
| technology to you or what not? And I told him, "No," I
| told him that, "That's not true." I think he probably
| implied we steal technology from customer, the way he
| talk.
|
| And I say, "I'll tell you why." I said that, "When we
| develop one node, basically you have some learning
| cycles. First, you do some simulation. And you have some
| idea, then you run wafers to prove that. So, you run a
| group of wafers according to simulation and you have some
| splits. The wafer runs through the fab, they come out and
| you measure them, you analyze them, and you try to
| improve and you run this again. This again, you run. So,
| this is learning cycle." At that time, "It takes about
| six learning cycle, roughly, to complete one generation."
| Of course, you had some short loops and not just one. I
| said that, "My R&D wafer in the fab run much faster than
| yours, because my R&D engineer works three shifts and you
| only work one shift. So, your R&D wafer move eight hours
| a day, my work/move 24-hours a day. So, my wafers go
| three times faster, even if you are twice smarter than
| me, I still beat you up." <laughter>
|
| https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/10279
| 267...
| smolder wrote:
| Some skepticism, but not too much. There's a decent
| possibility the self-sabotage at Intel stopped after new
| CEO Pat Gelsinger took over.
|
| Previous leadership was seriously mismanaging things. The
| following comment sheds some light on their stagnation
| during the 10nm/'Intel 7' node development period:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31759034
| scarface74 wrote:
| Intel's _first_ announcement when they decided to
| manufacture for third parties wasn't ARM it was MediaTek.
|
| Intel has a long way to go to prove they can catch up.
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickmoorhead/2022/08/10/int
| e...
|
| Intel isn't dabbing cutting edge chips from them
| lumb63 wrote:
| This is huge. For one, it can decrease geopolitical risks for
| US-based firms. It also offers a chance to obtain higher-end
| silicon. Some companies can't afford to use TSMC's latest and
| greatest silicon because big companies have soaked up all the
| capacity. This offers an alternative route for them. Hopefully
| it will make the environment much more competitive.
| galangalalgol wrote:
| Is anyone trying making IOT type devices in geopolitically
| stable places (in so far as there are any). Espressif seems
| like a pretty clear leader right now, but perhaps that is
| only from a hobbyists perspective? If bad things happened we
| would have bigger problems then wifi enabled toothbrushes,
| but it seems like a niche someone should make more robust and
| diverse.
| swamp40 wrote:
| Future US made IOT devices will mostly be ARM Cortex M33
| and M0+ microcontrollers. They have the latest cryptography
| and safety features built-in and nice libraries. It's
| surprisingly difficult to find out what fabs build them.
| Maybe someone here can chime in?
| galangalalgol wrote:
| Those things mostly don't have built in wifi which is
| annoying, because then you need a separate chip for the
| wifi. Atmel is the exception, arduino even makes a dev
| board with it, but it is $35 vs $8 for a esp32 devboard.
| consp wrote:
| Can't IoT devices be made on older fab's like the 32/40nm
| and up fab's available in for instance Germany (GloFo)?
| There are more of them in other more-or-less stable
| regions.
| blackoil wrote:
| Shouldn't IoT be most sensitive for power consumption?
| galangalalgol wrote:
| Usually more sensitive to price I think? Many IOT devices
| plug into wall outlets. For those that don't, I would
| expect the wireless capability to dwarf the power
| consumption of the chip itself, but it seems like newer
| fabs would definitely be a good thing.
| Groxx wrote:
| Yeah. Depends on a lot, but only small independent things
| really care about power. For the rest, put a bigger
| battery on it or plug it in... and nearly the entire
| consumer market for IOT can just plug it in.
| selectodude wrote:
| Of course, but I imagine Intel's spare 14nm+++++++++++
| capacity is pretty significant at the moment, which is
| best in class (non-TSMC division).
| agloe_dreams wrote:
| This is totally true, Esp. if Intel can be competitive. The
| dark side outcome is if it is really successful, it can
| really destabilize Asia by making the outcome of invading
| Taiwan less important to the west.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| >making the outcome of invading Taiwan less important to
| the west.
|
| That's the whole point of the recent semiconductor
| investment boom, though. Reduce dependence on Taiwanese
| silicon so that we can care less about the geopolitics of
| the region.
|
| The west essentially is getting tired of playing bodyguard
| to Taiwan; because as has been evident with the Ukraine
| invasion, the west is not willing to go to war to protect
| peace.
| SCUSKU wrote:
| I would imagine TSMC and the Taiwanese government are
| keeping a really close eye on this and doing everything
| they can to mitigate their the erosion of their Silicon
| Shield. I wonder what exactly though...
| alimov wrote:
| > Some companies can't afford to use TSMC's latest and
| greatest silicon because big companies have soaked up all the
| capacity.
|
| Apple is single handedly bankrolling the latest and greatest
| from TSMC. If it wasn't for them, the latest and greatest
| would likely be even more expensive/out of reach for "some
| companies".
| smoldesu wrote:
| Not single-handedly, Nvidia also puts up multi-billion
| dollar investments in TSMC's fab technology. That's what
| put them on the 4nm node so early.
| Maursault wrote:
| Glad to hear Leading Edge is back in the game![1]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leading_Edge_Products
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| Interesting to see Intel (or atleast a part of Intel) 'working
| with' a competitor.
|
| Although this might help Intel become more of a foundry player
| like TSMC this could help ARM get a greater share of the the
| server market over Intels xeon processors.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| So what does this mean for RISC-V?
| snvzz wrote:
| Not much.
|
| All we've learned here is that Intel foundry will fab some ARM
| chips.
| [deleted]
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