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Intel delays 10nm Cannon Lake processors, again, until late 2019

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Re: Intel delays 10nm Cannon Lake processors, again, until late 2019

#41

Post by gimmeThaBeet »

phire wrote: post #35
seiferteric wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every single time an article comes up about this someone says this, and every single time someone refutes this saying that 7nm is a lie. Intel 10nm is supposed to be more dense than TSMC 7nm (if they ever get there).

This fact keeps getting more and more exaggerated as time goes on. Yes, intel's 10nm absolutely smashes Samsung, GF and TSMC's 10nm processes. Yes Intel's 10nm should be very competitive/comparable with Samsung/GF/TSMC's 7nm processes. But all of the Intel 10nm metrics are slightly worse than the 7nm processes its now competing with. To cherrypick one metric as an example - * TSMC 10nm sram bitcell size: 0.042 µm² *…

Thank you for actually showing feature size metrics, it has been a bit maddening to see people say 'you can compare them directly' but then I can't find a lot of comparisons about any kinds of features.

Re: Intel delays 10nm Cannon Lake processors, again, until late 2019

#42

Post by georgeburdell »

thinkythought wrote: post #14
crunchlibrarian wrote: post #11

It's so strange how this is all playing out almost exactly like the Athlon XP days except with lots of cores and clouds.

Does anyone believe there's another core duo type massive leap out there to even be had this time around though? AMD is going to slowly pull a bit ahead of intel, especially in bang for buck, but i don't see how they can catch back up. As it is, last time intel jumped ahead it was by repackaging and souping up an a mobile arch that in and of itself was based on the old pentium 3 arch. They can't really mine the parts…

Looking at CPUs alone is probably too narrow of a focus. AMD bet the farm on a CPU architecture, and thankfully they appear to be winning, but they don't have competitors for most Intel products: FPGAs, Optane, some of the new AI chips, etc., and consequently Intel could still win in terms of ecosystem in the eyes of the big Cloud providers.

Re: Intel delays 10nm Cannon Lake processors, again, until late 2019

#43

Post by ac29 »

throwaway2048 wrote: post #30
hinkley wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The consensus the last time there was a delay was that TSMC's 7nm process is roughly comparable to Intel's 10nm process. They're still ahead, but only until Intel finally ships 10nm. I'm not sure how much this affects the industry in general, but I bet there are some interesting Intel vs Arm discussions being fueled in Apple's product roadmap meetings.

TSMC hasn't shipped 7nm yet. Nor has actual production of chips began.

High-volume production started in April: https://www.anandtech.com/show/12677/tsmc-kicks-off-volume-p...

I don't believe a customer or customers have been announced publicly yet, but the rumour mill seems to think Apple's A12 will be one of the first to ship on TSMC 7nm.

Re: Intel delays 10nm Cannon Lake processors, again, until late 2019

#44

Post by bradleyjg »

xenadu02 wrote: post #28
bhouston wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Intel goes multi-chip in the same package like Ryzen, then yeah, they can get more cores in, similar to Ryzen Threadripper. So there is a leap coming for Intel as well if they go that route, and after the massive success of Ryzen, they are likely going there. Just easier to scale core counts if you can use smaller dies and just use a lot of them with an interconnect fabric.

Intel had two advantages: 1. Relentless process improvement, putting them 1-2 generations ahead of everyone else. 2. Using their monopoly to prevent OEMs from shipping AMD processors. #1 isn't true anymore. #2 is almost irrelevant since mobile has taken over and makes the PC revolution look like child's play by comparison. Intel doesn't have a good graphics story. They sell hot power-hungry chips. They no longer have…

3. Yields. Historically Intel had the fastest ramp up to the highest yields.

I don’t know if that still holds true.

Re: Intel delays 10nm Cannon Lake processors, again, until late 2019

#45

Post by darkmighty »

rm999 wrote: post #21

It's fun to dig up old predictions of where we'd be today. Here's an article from 2002: https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1176510 >Moore's Law scales to at least 9nm: technologist >It'll be at least a human generation before Moore's Law begins to run out of gas at around the 9nm and even then it may thrive, TSMC's chief technologist said Tuesday (March 12). Calvin Chenming Hu told an audience at the annual…

As far as I hear from industry specialists (but don't know first hand), the 'node' terms have become little more than marketing. I believe in 2002 it was still a useful metric of feature size, hence why 9nm would be still ahead.

Re: Intel delays 10nm Cannon Lake processors, again, until late 2019

#46

Post by Valmar »

acchow wrote: post #22
rm999 wrote: post #21

It's fun to dig up old predictions of where we'd be today. Here's an article from 2002: https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1176510 >Moore's Law scales to at least 9nm: technologist >It'll be at least a human generation before Moore's Law begins to run out of gas at around the 9nm and even then it may thrive, TSMC's chief technologist said Tuesday (March 12). Calvin Chenming Hu told an audience at the annual…

Isn't comparing TSMC to Intel process nodes like comparing apples to oranges?

It's more one kind of apple to another.

They're both process nodes, with certain minor-ish differences here and there. TSMC calls theirs 7 nm, Intel calls theirs 10 nm.

Their performance characteristics might be around the same. In practice... who knows. We do know that Intel's current 10 nm CPUs are pretty much broken ~ best they could currently do was useless laptop-grade 2.5 GHz dual-core with no functional iGPU. Not sure about the HT, though.

Re: Intel delays 10nm Cannon Lake processors, again, until late 2019

#47

Post by Valmar »

AceJohnny2 wrote: post #2

It used to be that Intel was undisputed king of the silicon race. It's kind of shocking that they've fallen so far behind. TSMC is already doing 7nm mass production right now: https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20180622PD204.html (arguably, what they call "7nm" isn't quite that, but still...)

7 nm... 10 nm... all marketing bullshit, at the end of the day. Only way to know is compare the raw, different aspects of nodes.

Re: Intel delays 10nm Cannon Lake processors, again, until late 2019

#49

Post by deepnotderp »

seiferteric wrote: post #17
AceJohnny2 wrote: post #2

It used to be that Intel was undisputed king of the silicon race. It's kind of shocking that they've fallen so far behind. TSMC is already doing 7nm mass production right now: https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20180622PD204.html (arguably, what they call "7nm" isn't quite that, but still...)

Every single time an article comes up about this someone says this, and every single time someone refutes this saying that 7nm is a lie. Intel 10nm is supposed to be more dense than TSMC 7nm (if they ever get there).

Tsmc "7nm" and Intel "10nm" are roughly identical. Intel random logic is a bit denser thanks to COAG, SDG and BEOL and TSMC SRAM is a decent bit denser, that's mostly it.

Re: Intel delays 10nm Cannon Lake processors, again, until late 2019

#50

Post by deepnotderp »

rm999 wrote: post #21

It's fun to dig up old predictions of where we'd be today. Here's an article from 2002: https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1176510 >Moore's Law scales to at least 9nm: technologist >It'll be at least a human generation before Moore's Law begins to run out of gas at around the 9nm and even then it may thrive, TSMC's chief technologist said Tuesday (March 12). Calvin Chenming Hu told an audience at the annual…

Note that the effective gate length on an Intel "10nm" finfet is 18nm.
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