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Intel’s palpable desperation on display with Rocket Lake

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Re: Intel’s palpable desperation on display with Rocket Lake

#241

Post by kasabali »

013a wrote: post #47
ethbr0 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chip architecture isn't current Intel's problem, process architecture is. There's some overlap between the 2, but 100% of Intel's current struggles can be chalked up to dysfunction on their process side. Given the lead time of chip arch (2-3 years?), the chip side of the house is arriving at manufacturing start day, and the process and specs they'd been optimizing for just aren't available. Until Intel's process catc…

Right, and that's my biggest fear. The process side of this industry is in a really scary spot right now. TSMC is killing it. Nvidia is using Samsung to fab the RTX 3xxx chips, and there's some rumblings that low yields are a reason why those are in such short supply (not to mention, whenever Samsung releases a new phone only some regions get the Exynos chips, because historically they couldn't produce enough of them…

> whenever Samsung releases a new phone only some regions get the Exynos chips, because historically they couldn't produce enough of them

That's not true.

The reason for that has always been Quallcomm's patent shakedown.

Re: Intel’s palpable desperation on display with Rocket Lake

#242

Post by Schiendelman »

Microsoft turned this around in 2009-2010 with one decision: Give everyone in engineering a 10-15% raise to keep up with competition. Intel’s fallen far behind on pay, so they have a brain drain problem and a morale problem. They won’t fix it until they pay people more. I think Intel’s more than 15% behind - they may need to bump by 25% or more.

Re: Intel’s palpable desperation on display with Rocket Lake

#243

Post by incog_nit0 »

nxc18 wrote: post #4

Is there good coverage of how Intel became so uncompetitive? My instinct is to say this is just the natural result of the presence of MBAs who are trained to focus _exclusively_ on this quarter's results so ignore R&D investment and also shit on employees by doing gimmicks like hotdesking to pinch pennies. I'm willing to bet my intuition is wrong, especially given my extremely deep bias against MBAs and 'this quarter…

> Is there good coverage of how Intel became so uncompetitive?

This is an insightful analysis of what’s going wrong at Intel and the lead-up and fall out after Keller left:

Part 1: https://web.archive.org/web/20200730185751/https://twitter.c...

Part 2: https://web.archive.org/web/20200729091548/https://twitter.c...

Part 2.5: https://web.archive.org/web/20200802065407/https://twitter.c...

Part 3: https://web.archive.org/web/20200807105015/https://twitter.c...

Part 4: https://web.archive.org/web/20200812073050/https://twitter.c...

Re: Intel’s palpable desperation on display with Rocket Lake

#244

Post by woofie11 »

topspin wrote: post #213
klelatti wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we've all taken the ability to reliably introduce process node improvements for granted to some extent. Intel has clearly been caught out by its inability to get 10nm - which I understand was overambitious - to work and pretty much everything else follows on from there. At the same time AMD has been fortunate that TSMC has been able to continue with its node shrinks - supported by demand from and cash generat…

> Intel has clearly been caught out by its inability to get 10nm - which I understand was overambitious - to work and pretty much everything else follows on from there. It's more than process node. Zen 3 now has superior IPC as well; the now unqualified performance lead of AMD devices happens at lower frequency. The process node problem is just the most visible and embarrassing problem Intel has. It is not the only p…

> The one area that Intel has managed to maintain superiority is quality. Intel is still the thing to buy if you want minimum glitches.

This is kind of a big one, and why I prefer Intel. I can't see it continuing, though. Intel will feel pressure to:

* spin products to seem even somewhat competitive

* reduce their margins on clock speed (historically, they overclocked well because of conservative margins), and run a little too fast/too hot

* push things out the door before they're ready

I don't care very much about a 50% performance difference, but I do care a lot about stability. If Intel can maintain a quality lead, I'm likely to keep buying Intel.

Few executive teams have that long-term discipline.

Re: Intel’s palpable desperation on display with Rocket Lake

#245

Post by woofie11 »

mark-r wrote: post #164
microtherion wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that the digital camera was literally invented at Kodak! What if they had pivoted to building cameras themselves?

They did manufacture cameras themselves, but it wasn't enough. Remember that Kodak was making money in film manufacturing, film processing, and printing. They were literally making money from every click of the shutter. Even if they built the best cameras in the world, it wouldn't have saved them. And the ability of any electronics company to make cameras from standardized components made it impossible for them to ke…

Nah. Sensors. Sensor tech. It's hugely different from mainstream electronics or putting things together from standardized components. Sony took that lead, with Samsung and a few other close behind. Each time Nikon sells a camera, Sony gets a cut. Same thing for most other camera companies, except Canon.

Everything has sensors now, from manufacturing processes, to cell phones, to your optical mouse.

Imaging is much bigger than film.

Kodak R&D had a lead there too, but blew it bringing it to market.

Re: Intel’s palpable desperation on display with Rocket Lake

#246

Post by klelatti »

topspin wrote: post #234
klelatti wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not disagreeing that Intel has deep problems but doesn't greater transistor density support more sophisticated architectures and hence superior IPC? Also the failure to get 10nm working has presumably been problematic for the architecture team who have to design for two processes at the same time rather than focus on just 10nm?

> doesn't greater transistor density support more sophisticated architectures and hence superior IPC? Intel claims Rocket Lake will deliver 10% IPC improvement over Cannon Lake on the same 14nm node. Clearly 14nm hasn't been tapped out despite the five years and 3-4 (depending on who you ask) previous microarchitectures they've used it for. Yes, smaller devices enable better designs. Ironically if Rocket Lake actuall…

> Yes, smaller devices enable better designs.

Which is probably why AMD has better IPC now.

> they called it "tick-tock" which is the cycle of developing a new microarchitecture on one node and then porting to a smaller node.

The whole tick-tock cycle has been interrupted by the 10nm failure which has almost certainly thrown off their architecture development cycle. It's not about moving cores to a smaller node its about knowing whether you're designing for 10nm or 14 nm.

Re: Intel’s palpable desperation on display with Rocket Lake

#247

Post by mensetmanusman »

octoberfranklin wrote: post #203
mensetmanusman wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think on decades time scale, electron based turing machines are asymptoting in design, there isn’t much space for someone to be ahead until we start making optical computers.

Keep dreaming. Electrons interact with each other, photons don't.

Not directly, but you can do really clever things with nonlinearity, look at this recent development:

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-11/ou-1ei110320...

Essentially, if you trap a few photons in little resonator cavities that rely on mostly all of the electrons making up the cavity, the next set of photons can pass through the cavity without interaction.

This means the light interacts with engineered electrons in a specific way to create an optical switch. This is a critical component of photonics on a chip, and was just demonstrated with Si (which is a requirement for something in the mid term).

Re: Intel’s palpable desperation on display with Rocket Lake

#248

Post by sgerenser »

klelatti wrote: post #230
hakfoo wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably also a great way to avoid head-to-head competition. Apple marketing always reminded me of how for decades, Rolls-Royce advertisements never would explicitly say things like the engine horsepower and displacement-- just "ample." Now it will be that much easier to dodge performance questions. "Our machines are not built to run (mainstream software or game), so of course the performance is sketchy in the e…

They have some history with this with PowerPC but it really doesn't explain why they would make such a move now as they are already using x86 (if it is superior) - makes no sense to put themselves at a disadvantage just to be able to dodge performance questions.

Apple is all about mobile now, even for computers. So they don’t care that AMD has great desktop CPUs, they need great mobile (laptop) CPUs too. The Ryzen 4750U is a great laptop chip, but I can pretty much guarantee that in perf/watt the new Apple Silicon CPUs will blow them out of the water.

Re: Intel’s palpable desperation on display with Rocket Lake

#249

Post by klelatti »

sgerenser wrote: post #248
klelatti wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have some history with this with PowerPC but it really doesn't explain why they would make such a move now as they are already using x86 (if it is superior) - makes no sense to put themselves at a disadvantage just to be able to dodge performance questions.

Apple is all about mobile now, even for computers. So they don’t care that AMD has great desktop CPUs, they need great mobile (laptop) CPUs too. The Ryzen 4750U is a great laptop chip, but I can pretty much guarantee that in perf/watt the new Apple Silicon CPUs will blow them out of the water.

Completely agree and it's not just about CPU it's about having a great power efficient GPU and about being able to do things with the neural engine for example that would not be possible on an x86 Intel or AMD laptop design.

Re: Intel’s palpable desperation on display with Rocket Lake

#250

Post by usrusr »

mjevans wrote: post #208
ndesaulniers wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> whatever forgettable AMD had been building between the Athlon glory days and those of Ryzen Phenom II! I had six cores, 7 years ago! They were dog slow, but there were six of them (and that's all I could afford).

They weren't even that slow. Seven years ago they didn't win in __single threaded__ applications, but for any multi-threaded workload they were great.

How is that not equivalent to "they were so much cheaper that you could get more of them"? Hardly what I'd call architectural success.
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