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Apple, Intel have reached preliminary chip-making deal

reuters.com

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Re: Apple, Intel have reached preliminary chip-making deal

#121

Post by GeekyBear »

ahartmetz wrote: post #112
GeekyBear wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They mention that Intel bought the initial production run in the page that introduced the new product. > can print transistors 1.7 times smaller – and therefore achieve transistor densities 2.9 times higher – than they can with NXE systems. https://www.asml.com/en/news/stories/2024/5-things-high-na-e...

Nothing about the number of machines in that article though. I could well see Intel buying the first ones of the new series as a PR coup. I mean obviously they are going to use them, too.

> Intel has secured all of ASML’s stock of High Numerical Aperture NA Extreme Ultraviolet (High NA EUV) chipmaking equipment due to be manufactured this year.

https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/intel-acquires-as...

Re: Apple, Intel have reached preliminary chip-making deal

#122

Post by aurareturn »

adrian_b wrote: post #116
aurareturn wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notice how it doesn't say it's more efficient than Lunar Lake. Their benchmarks say LNL is more efficient.

The performance with LNL is not apples-to-apples, like the comparison with Arrow Lake H. LNL has a much lower power consumption in the memory interface, like the Apple CPUs, which has nothing to do with the fabrication process. Also LNL is a lower performance CPU, for which it is normal to have better energy efficiency. Only the comparison between Panther Lake and Arrow Lake H, which have equivalent structures, can b…

On-package memory disproportionately affect idle power more than load power. The benchmark was done with Cinebench 2024 which is a heavy load test. Therefore, LNL's on package memory would have made little to no difference overall to perf/watt in Cinebench 2024 ST.

  Only the comparison between Panther Lake and Arrow Lake H, which have equivalent structures, can be used to compare the Intel 18A and the TSMC 3-nm fabrication processes.
Panther Lake uses a new core design which likely contributed to better perf/watt regardless of which node was used. For example, Zen3 had a 19% increase in IPC despite being on the same N7 family node as Zen2. Panther Lake has 3 tiers of cores instead of 2 in Arrow Lake. The MT design is very different. New core and layout designs can make a huge difference in efficiency on the same node.

  This comparison shows that Intel 18A ensures a better performance per watt, i.e. energy efficiency, which leads to a better multithreaded performance, but the TSMC 3-nm process, at least for now, allows higher maximum clock frequencies, which make possible a higher single-thread performance.
We should compare ST perf/watt instead of MT. MT has too many factors including core count, die size, transistor count, clock speed.

Based on ST perf/watt, Intel 18A is likely a bit worse than N3B (2022 node) and a bit better than N4P (2021 node).

Re: Apple, Intel have reached preliminary chip-making deal

#123

Post by modeless »

oezi wrote: post #111
ahartmetz wrote: post #28

This is really nice for competition in semiconductor manufacturing. The TSMC quasi-monopoly (with Samsung fabs slightly lagging) and limited capacity is not good for the market. Owning leading edge fabs might also help Intel to keep up the competition in the x86 market. Intel is the underdog now!

How does Global Foundries fit into this? Are they still a thing?

They stopped pursuing cutting edge fabrication processes many years ago. Always seemed like a short sighted business decision to me.

Re: Apple, Intel have reached preliminary chip-making deal

#124

Post by toast0 »

torben-friis wrote: post #4

Wasn't the whole apple silicon thing about Intel being unable to keep up? Is this maybe a way to expand the affordable neo line?

IMHO, the big thing was the mismatch between what Apple wanted in a CPU and what Intel was prepared to offer the marketplace, and AMD wasn't different enough to matter.

Intel/AMD chips are designed with one thermal target for acceptable computing and a second, much higher target if you want to compute at the highest throughput continuously.

Apple did not provide the highest thermal capaicity and suffered when comparing similar cpu against another OEM. With Apple silicon, the cpu is designed around the thermal solution Apple is willing to provide. A lower power target leads to a lower clockspeed target leads to different design tradeoffs than Intel/AMD where flagship designs must clock to the moon. You can see similar benefits for the lower targets in AMD's ZenC cores.

But ZenC wasn't available, and Apple probably wouldn't want to be running laptops with only ZenC when you could get a regular Zen laptop from someone else. Apple benefits from avoiding apples to apples comparisons.

Likely Apple won't lean too heavily on Intel fab to start with. Let them do processors for value products and see where it goes, but always plan for fab agility. At least until Intel fab becomes a reliable partner.

Re: Apple, Intel have reached preliminary chip-making deal

#125

Post by y3ahd0g »

twoodfin wrote: post #103
y3ahd0g wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Time will tell but with Ternus taking over, a hardware and engineering mindset, could be going for a long term learn and build together, and of Intel can get it together and go where Apple needs, later buyout Intel. Lip-Bu Tan is a year older than Tim Cook. Doubt he wants to run Intel for very long. Would be hard for me in the Ternus role to not have that in mind if Intel gets it together.

I don’t imagine Apple views fab technology as a potential differentiator worth the massive investment. This is about diversifying their supply chain as they have done all over the place for decades. Displays, for example.

That's why I wrote time will tell.

The uncertainty of political order in the near term could make having fabs on their home turf as worth the security.

Learn now, collaborate as preparation in case certain criteria politically, financially, are met.

Re: Apple, Intel have reached preliminary chip-making deal

#126

Post by toast0 »

bigyabai wrote: post #77
vsgherzi wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boot camp is a windows problem. This can be done today on apple silicon but Microsoft dosent want to go through the effort to support it.

Technically speaking, Bootcamp is an iBoot problem. Apple stopped shipping Macs with firmware UEFI which breaks 99% of generic OS installers out of the box. Microsoft is pretty justified not wanting to support that, versus UEFI on OG Bootcamp. The majority of Linux distros don't ship image support for iBoot either.

> Apple stopped shipping Macs with firmware UEFI which breaks 99% of generic OS installers out of the box.

Did Apple ever support UEFI? I thought it was only ever EFI; no U.

Re: Apple, Intel have reached preliminary chip-making deal

#127

Post by [deleted] »

aurareturn wrote: post #48
whynotminot wrote: post #25

Big deal, smart for all parties, really. Apple standards will make Intel step up and become a better foundry partner. Apple will gain increasingly needed diversification. US supply chain gets a boost. Should be fine for TSMC in the short to medium term. Apple not going to risk actual mainline iPhone SoC on Intel any time soon, so lion share of TSMC Apple revenue will be fine.

The biggest reason to do this is because TSMC's N2 node and future nodes will be dominated by AI chips. Since AI chips have far bigger margins than most Apple chips, Apple will get outbid by companies like Nvidia, AMD, and Broadcom. Nvidia already became TSMC's biggest customer last year. Every TSMC advanced node from N5 to N2 is fully booked and running at max capacity. It's not really realistic to make Mac, Watch,…

[deleted]

Re: Apple, Intel have reached preliminary chip-making deal

#128

Post by aurareturn »

GeekyBear wrote: post #118
aurareturn wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a source of how many total EUV machines Intel bought and TSMC bought in the last 1-2 years? Yes, Intel made the first purchase for High NA EUV machines. That's largely because they were so far behind TSMC, they took a big risk as the first adopter for High NA EUV with their upcoming 14A node to try to catch up. TSMC thinks it can keep using low NA EUV machines for N2 and A14 nodes even if they have to inc…

> TSMC thinks it can keep using low NA EUV machines for N2 and A14 nodes even if they have to increase the number of patterning steps. Intel thought they could skip buying into EUV at all and just increase their patterning steps. That didn't work out as well as they hoped.

Actually, Intel tried to stuff too many advances into 10nm when ASML hasn't even shipped EUV machines yet. That's where they got stuck. Once they got stuck, EUV transitioned was delayed for Intel.

Re: Apple, Intel have reached preliminary chip-making deal

#130

Post by aurareturn »

adrian_b wrote: post #120
aurareturn wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scroll to the "Cinebench 2024 Single Power Efficiency" section.[0] It doesn't even beat Lunar Lake in efficiency (made on TSMC N3B) released in 2024. [0] https://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Panther-Lake-Core-Ultra-...

Besides the fact that Lunar Lake has a lower consumption in the memory interface, which has nothing to do with the fabrication process, single-thread benchmarks cannot be used to compare CPU fabrication processes. Both the absolute performance and the performance per watt in single-thread benchmarks are determined mainly by the CPU design and they are only slightly constrained by the CPU fabrication process. Only the…

On package memory disproportionally affects idle power consumption more than load. In Cinebench 2024, which is a heavy load test, on package memory likely makes little difference.

ST is far better than MT for this node comparison. MT is heavily influenced by core count, clock speed, core configuration. Panther Lake also has 3 tiers of cores compared to Arrow Lake's 2. The architecture for MT is entirely different.

Meanwhile, for ST, a core is a core. It's less or not affected by architectural changes to core configurations.

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