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Intel is all-in on backside power delivery

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Re: Intel is all-in on backside power delivery

#121

Post by TheBigSalad »

wtallis wrote: post #39
TheRealPomax wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does "start leading" even mean? Every CPU launch, AMD is ahead and the Intel beats them or Intel is ahead and then AMD beats them. There is no leading here. There are only wins for people who want CPUs that keep getting faster, cooler, require fewer watts to run, and overall improve generation upon generation.

It's only been perennial leapfrogging for the past several years, when AMD has been doing well with their Zen processors and Intel has been on a recovery path from their 10nm failures. But before that, there were a few stretches of several years each where Intel was solidly in the lead and AMD was always an also-ran. Intel couldn't have retained their dominant market share for decades without having those long period…

But people are pining for the "good old days" where Intel sucked, but AMD sucked more. Now these two companies are competitive and innovating. This is how it's supposed to be.

Re: Intel is all-in on backside power delivery

#122

Post by [deleted] »

rektide wrote: post #75
Tuna-Fish wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, it only looks good because it's sold at such a deep discount. A770 has a 400mm^2 die and a 256-bit bus to 16GB of GDDR6. It only competes favorably to cards that cost less than half of what it did to manufacture. You can say that it's a great deal for a consumer, but it is a terrible deal for Intel, and the only reason they are selling them for such a price is that they already have the stock and couldn't sell…

There could definitely be a lot of truth to this but we don't really know do we? Do we have any idea how much these chips actually cost various chipmakers?1 Amd's rx580 was a $280 gpu with 256bit bus too. It got down near $200 for a while. It was only 240mm^2 though. I simply don't know what chips actually can cost these days. I wouldn't be surprised to find out Intel's taking a bath here but I also would be super un…

[deleted]

Re: Intel is all-in on backside power delivery

#123

Post by rwmj »

hn_thrwn wrote: post #77
wpietri wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. Very helpful. One of the wild things to me is how incredibly elaborate chipmaking as become over the years. Per Wikipedia, the 6502's layout was made with "a very manual process done with color pencils and vellum paper". That's the processor that launched the personal computing revolution, powering the Apple II, Commodore PET and VIC-20, the Acorn, and the BBC Micro. Nearly 50 years later, things have gotten…

Chip making is the first industry that was automates by computers. Much like how steam engines were first used in coal mines.

Not making nuclear weapons or banking?

Re: Intel is all-in on backside power delivery

#124

Post by yvdriess »

brucethemoose2 wrote: post #2

Heh, I remember when this was the norm: Samsung, TSMC, and GloFo waiting for Intel to work out the kinks and tooling before implementing it themselves.

To be fair, most of that research happens pre-competitively (cfr imec roadmap). That includes working with tool makers to work out the kinks. Of course there is a big hurdle from there to an actual product-scale deployment.

Re: Intel is all-in on backside power delivery

#125

Post by svantana »

hn_thrwn wrote: post #97
nightowl_games wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Chip making is automated." Is not a true statement.

Wow so we still design CPUs on silk screens by hand?

I'm writing this comment on a computer, not with pencil and paper. Does that mean it was automated?

Re: Intel is all-in on backside power delivery

#126

Post by lotsofpulp »

porknubbins wrote: post #54
hn8305823 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intel, just like Boeing and to a lesser extent many other F500 companies appear to be fully financialized at this point. Their executives probably wake up each day and think about how much stock to buy back and nothing else. Do they even remember what it is the company used to do for a living?

Intel rested on their laurels for many years but their processors are neck and neck with AMD in some segments (probably because they had margin to burn, which they now have to stay competitive). And they are still adding fabs in the US. When I think of financialized companies I think like IBM. I wouldn’t count Intel out yet.

IBM is a good example, all that is left is rearranging ships on the deck while it goes down.

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/IBM/ibm/net-income

Re: Intel is all-in on backside power delivery

#127

Post by Someone »

svantana wrote: post #125
hn_thrwn wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow so we still design CPUs on silk screens by hand?

I'm writing this comment on a computer, not with pencil and paper. Does that mean it was automated?

Somewhat, IMO. For example, did you use spellchecking or autocorrect (where ‘use’ may mean you spent a tiny less time/attention on spelling, trusting your spellchecker to add wiggly lines to words you might misspell, even if you don’t make any typo?)

Re: Intel is all-in on backside power delivery

#128

Post by PedroBatista »

georgeburdell wrote: post #93
genmud wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming they deliver on a timetable they say they will, which intel has had a well established track record of not doing. With intel, over the last 5-10 years I don't believe anything they say until there are chips in peoples hands at a volume that is meaningful.

Gelsinger (re)introduced OKRs a couple of years ago. Everyone's being held accountable for their promises at all levels now. It's probably caused them to stop dreaming so much and get more conservative but predictable.

I don't think Intel's problem for the last +10 years has been dreaming too much.

It's more to do with a deeply dysfunctional and arrogant organization from top to bottom due to many factors, one of them being having the market "cornered" for the previous ~10 years.

Re: Intel is all-in on backside power delivery

#129

Post by zeusk »

paulmd wrote: post #104
justinclift wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ahhh, thanks. I'd wondered whether the CEO prior to Bob Swan did much of the damage, as Intel were known to have fucked up the process side for years by that point. Sounds like a clear Yes then. That being said, Bob Swann was the Intels' CFO from 2016 prior to his becoming CEO. So he was still involved during the later part of Brian Krzanich's tenure.

It's more than process problems though, and really more than BK too. Intel was the proverbial termite-riddled house by the 2010s on multiple levels. BK was COO from 2012 and CEO from 2013, and intel was already starting to spin its wheels by that point on stuff like modems and atom and wireless and lacked a proper strategic direction. It's hard to know how much internal jank was in the architectures back then but it…

> Alder Lake has its AVX-512 disabled

Alder lake has AVX-512 disabled because 512 bit data paths on atom cores don't make sense and Microsoft couldn't execute on a IHV specific scheduling change so quickly. AVX2+ and later Windows scheduler changes will take care of this. Just like P-states, Intel now has hardware scheduling hints for the OS as well.

> Meteor Lake is not happening on desktop

Because arrow lake is tracking closely within 6 months and MTL/LNL are focused on the platform power efficiency.

> Those teams are underperforming and it has nothing to do with 10nm delays.

It very much has to do with process nodes as well, with tight coupling of process to chip area (yield, thermals) and number of transistors.

Re: Intel is all-in on backside power delivery

#130

Post by foldr »

fennecfoxy wrote: post #118
SuperShibe wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And meanwhile they're both getting cucked by Apple because the Intel/AMD brand monoliths are too heavy to make any groundbreaking/architectural changes now.

By Apple? Or by ARM? There's a reason it's an "ARM" processor & not an "Apple" one, even though yes, Apple did contribute a lot of their own design to their specific chip. Unfortunately, Apple took the shortcut of gaining performance by having memory/SB/NB/kitchen sink all together on the same die, which is very...not scalable. It's a good way to be "top in class" for the class your in, but it comes with a ceiling; y…

> where competitors can use the whole die for processor, Apple are stuck using only part of the die, the rest being used for memory/controllers, etc.

The memory isn’t on the same die in the M-series chips.

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