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Intel's disruption is now complete

jamesallworth.medium.com

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Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#471

Post by pas »

hyperpallium2 wrote: post #153

That chart is not of competing technologies, but of market demand and one technology. The classic disruptive chart shows two technologies improving in parallel, but the performance customers demand doesn't increase as fast, so eventually the disruptive technology is "good enough" for those customers (even though the incumbent technology is better still: it "overshoots") and has other desired qualities (like battery e…

anyone wondering, I guess this is the "classic chart": https://hbr.org/resources/images/article_assets/2015/11/R151...

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#472

Post by p_l »

CountSessine wrote: post #459
CountSessine wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

which started from the same design as Exynos Apple was actually the one designing those cores in the Exynos - up until and including the Exynos 4000. That was when Apple decided to sever ties with Samsung and stopped designing cores for them and Samsung had to go back to stock ARM designs with the Exynos 5000. That was why the 5000 series sucked so badly - Samsung lost access to those Apple/Intrinsity juiced cores. I…

I'm wrong about that - it was the Exynos 3110 that had the Apple designed core that also appeared in the A4. And after that, it was back to ARM's humble designs for Samsung.

Hummingbird in SGS2 (this was before rename to Exynos) and A4 in iPhone 4 stem from cooperation between Samsung and Apple (who previously used Samsung SoC in iPhone 3G and I think in 2G). The teams split before both phones reached maturity in design. From then on Samsung kept iterating on the Hummingbird design till I think quite recently - I'm not sure if my Note 10+ doesn't still have cores derived from that design.

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#473

Post by kelnos »

ptx wrote: post #304
regimeld wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agree. The world's supply of semiconductors is dependent, in some ways, on the benevolence of the CCP. TSMC is like Arakkis. We need to diversify the supply chain.

TSMC is a Taiwanese company. The world can ensure the supply of its semiconductors by ensuring Taiwan has access to weapons and guarantees of military assistance in case the CCP's benevolence wavers.

If China decides to take Taiwan by force, there is very little the rest of the world can do to stop them.

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#474

Post by [deleted] »

emodendroket wrote: post #434
Spivak wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Less too big to fail, more a national security interest in ensuring the US can make chips during a hypothetical conflict. Great if you’re the company the gov’t blesses for this purpose (like Microsoft) but not so great for their competitors.

I'd probably be nervous about TSMC opening a fab in AZ then

[deleted]

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#475

Post by pas »

dboreham wrote: post #2

What's the real reason Apple can design a higher performance device? Better fab process? ARM ISA is fundamentally faster? Graph conveniently omits AMD who now beat Intel using the same ISA but different process.

Look at these graphs: https://www.anandtech.com/show/16226/apple-silicon-m1-a14-de...

The 5 Watt iPhone CPU almost beats the 45 Watt AMD CPU. And the M1 will then simply obliterate the x86 incumbents.

Why? The real reason is that Apple had/has the real advantage. It's size, resources, money, strategy, know-how.

It's bigger than Intel. It has a better corporate culture than Intel, it has a vertically integrated market completely safe from any outside disruption for years, and will be for years. It had the opportunity to do this switch, so it had the motivation to develop this capability.

Apple was able to hire the best semi designers plus benefit from the ARM platform.

AMD is still too small and relatively spread thin - trying to cover multiple segments of the general market - compared to Apple, which basically has this one chip in two versions (mobile and ultra mobile).

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#476

Post by dboreham »

pas wrote: post #475
dboreham wrote: post #2

What's the real reason Apple can design a higher performance device? Better fab process? ARM ISA is fundamentally faster? Graph conveniently omits AMD who now beat Intel using the same ISA but different process.

Look at these graphs: https://www.anandtech.com/show/16226/apple-silicon-m1-a14-de... The 5 Watt iPhone CPU almost beats the 45 Watt AMD CPU. And the M1 will then simply obliterate the x86 incumbents. Why? The real reason is that Apple had/has the real advantage. It's size, resources, money, strategy, know-how. It's bigger than Intel. It has a better corporate culture than Intel, it has a vertically integrated market…

Well ok but by that theory Dec Alpha or HP PA should have dominated?

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#477

Post by protomyth »

dboreham wrote: post #476
pas wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at these graphs: https://www.anandtech.com/show/16226/apple-silicon-m1-a14-de... The 5 Watt iPhone CPU almost beats the 45 Watt AMD CPU. And the M1 will then simply obliterate the x86 incumbents. Why? The real reason is that Apple had/has the real advantage. It's size, resources, money, strategy, know-how. It's bigger than Intel. It has a better corporate culture than Intel, it has a vertically integrated market…

Well ok but by that theory Dec Alpha or HP PA should have dominated?

Both examples were chips that were basically bought by Intel. The Alpha was a monster, and the PA ended up being replaced by the Itanium.

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#478

Post by bamboozled »

notSupplied wrote: post #92
SoSoRoCoCo wrote: post #20

As someone who worked on Intel's phone chip: we definitely didn't win it. We fucked it up twelve ways to Sunday. Why: giant egos. There were turf wars between Austin, Santa Clara and Israel over who would design it, and the team that won out had long since lost its best principle engineers and had no clue how to spin the architecture to meet the design win. Otellini's hindsight hedge is pure spin: we knew the landing…

I have a theory about why turf wars like this happens: the more successful and wealthy an entity, the greater opportunity there is for a manager to take wealth instead of make it. When you’re scrappy and broke, the only path to success is to make the company successful. When the company is rich and multitudinous, an individual can gain more from politics and turf wars rather than actually trying to push an already hi…

Seen and been subjected to this many many times.

Startup going well, productive team and people to work with.

Some guy who sucks with years of sucking experience joins to “manage” the company/team/department into the ground.

I work for a not for profit now and we get paid less, very few people suck.

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#479

Post by ndesaulniers »

qznc wrote: post #96
SteveGerencser wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had friends at the Intel fab in New Mexico in the 90s and this type of turf war was prevalent even then internally at the fab. Managers were constantly jockeying for position at the expense of manufacturing processes. Just one anecdotal story, one of the wafer guys had an idea to improve a process. He went to his boss who shot it down instantly. Wafer guy knew he was right so went to another manager who liked the i…

I'm currently reading High Output Management which is 25 years old. So your comment addresses the time where the book was written. Grove certainly sends quite utilitarian vibes. He also says that a collaborative culture is important. Your comment suggests that neither he nor his successors managed to make Intel's culture collaborative enough. Higher management is probably often an iterated prisoners dilemma. Collabor…

Is is a good book you'd recommend otherwise?

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#480

Post by jkcorrea »

dmix wrote: post #371
notSupplied wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a theory about why turf wars like this happens: the more successful and wealthy an entity, the greater opportunity there is for a manager to take wealth instead of make it. When you’re scrappy and broke, the only path to success is to make the company successful. When the company is rich and multitudinous, an individual can gain more from politics and turf wars rather than actually trying to push an already hi…

As I've linked to many times on HN: The Iron Law of Bureaucracy > Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people": > First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricu…

HBO's The Wire captures this so well across a variety of organizations.

Edit: thanks OP for continuing to post this link, I as well found it enlightening :)

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