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Intel is dying and we can’t save it

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Re: Intel is dying and we can’t save it

#141

Post by dis-sys »

thisisnico wrote: post #85
icedchai wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, a similar situation happened in the mid 2000's before Intel moved to the Core architecture. I wouldn't be surprised if something like this happened again.

The Core Architecture in the mid 2000's was such an incredible shot back to the top. I remember seeing the benchmarks absolutely dominate AMD on every level, power, performance, TDP, Cost, etc. etc. This is almost immediately after Athlon 64 and the Athlon 64X2 started to gain market share, spanking Intel's Pentium 4 at the time. IIRC Intel ended up dropping the Prescott architecture, moving to the Pentium M architec…

I still have my Q6600, what an incredible processor at its time.

Re: Intel is dying and we can’t save it

#142

Post by CPAhem »

nwmcsween wrote: post #117
thisisnico wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Core Architecture in the mid 2000's was such an incredible shot back to the top. I remember seeing the benchmarks absolutely dominate AMD on every level, power, performance, TDP, Cost, etc. etc. This is almost immediately after Athlon 64 and the Athlon 64X2 started to gain market share, spanking Intel's Pentium 4 at the time. IIRC Intel ended up dropping the Prescott architecture, moving to the Pentium M architec…

This just puts into perspective how stagnate cpus have been, ~14 years and we are just starting to move to more than 4 core processors on prosumer systems.

That's monopoly power for you. Right now there's competition to Intel again which means processors will probably start getting much faster again.

That's one of the few great things about capitalism - competition drives innovation.

Re: Intel is dying and we can’t save it

#143

Post by NonEUCitizen »

gscott wrote: post #50
mhh__ wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Taiwan ends up getting trampled by China, we'd effectively only have Samsung for cutting edge lithography.

We should just bomb Taiwan's chip plants in case the Chinese take over. We can do that from pretty far away so not too much danger.

You are American ("We should just bomb...")?

A better idea is to give a US passport to every TSMC employee NOW (exempt them from having to hold a green card and live in USA for 5 years first). And change the law so that US citizens residing overseas with no US-sourced income are exempted from filing and paying taxes.

Other countries that wish to have leading edge commercial fabs, e.g. Germany or Netherlands, should compete with USA and try to get their passports to TSMC employees first. Tell them your country does not tax citizens on overseas income, and like Taiwan, has universal healthcare, high-speed rail, and gun control. Netherlands can also advertise that TSMC employees likely already have some Dutch friends at ASML.

Re: Intel is dying and we can’t save it

#144

Post by mardiyah »

ChrisIsTaken wrote: post #60
monocasa wrote: post #6

Any analysis that says that Intel's death is being precipitated by AMD and Apple rather than by TSMC is pretty much worth ignoring. The fact that they're almost equivalent to those two at 5nm when Intel is at 14nm+++++++++ shows how killer the RTL and tape out folk are at Intel. The real fight has always been at the fab layer.

Apple did poach a few of Intel's better architects and killed Intel's smartphone ambitions. But the damage occured two decades before that. Intel is dying because they should have entered the foundry business in the early 90's. Process was always their forte, they were never good at the CPU architecture design anyway as iAPX/i860/Itanium amply demonstrated. Instead they blew $100B getting into antivirus, network secu…

Nice insight...

Re: Intel is dying and we can’t save it

#145

Post by TwoBit »

schmookeeg wrote: post #83
MichaelApproved wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The ratio of excellent to useless people I experienced there was 1:40 This has to be hyperbole but the rest of your comment makes me think you're being serious. I have only worked at small companies My guess is you thought those people were useless because you didn't understand the role they played in the company. However, I'll admin again that I don't have first hand experience. I'd genuinely love to hear from oth…

Oh it's reality. My experience at Sony was about 1:25, but other big dumb companies I have worked for have met and exceeded the 1:40 rule. It is amazing how process generates dead weight and worthless humans and nobody seems to care. At one point I posited that Sony USA were merely a political pawn for Sony Japan. Hire a few tens of thousands of Americans, gain political capital -- and care not what they actually do…

Wow I worked at Oculus and the ratio was at least 30/40, if not higher.

Re: Intel is dying and we can’t save it

#146

Post by asddubs »

systemvoltage wrote: post #95
dpe82 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Large companies can hide inefficiencies and incompetence of staggering proportion. Often there's little incentive to really improve things, but tons of bureaucracy that helps maintain the status quo or let it slide ever worse. People can only judge how good something is against their experience, so if you've only ever worked at that bigco and only known incompetence then you might not even realize anything is wrong.…

1:20 is pretty realistic. Seen with my own eyes and ears. I wasn’t the 1, I was part of the 20. Didn’t do shit all day mainly because incentives were not aligned to motivate me. I get the same salary if I put in the extra effort. So why. Knew one guy who had a vision and the stamina to push through with PowerPoint precision. He was the 1.

> He was the 1.

aw come on, I'm sure you'll meet somebody, find happiness and forget all about him

Re: Intel is dying and we can’t save it

#147

Post by usr1106 »

I would not mind Intel going Nokia (phone business). From world market leader to out of business in 7 years.

CPUs that are fundamentally insecure (meltdown and all the subsequent microcode level vulnerabilities). Mandatory backdoor called ME. We would not miss a lot.

But where is the competitor that will replace it? Actually healthily competing competitors, not just one would be ideal.

Even Boeing has a stronger competitor.

Re: Intel is dying and we can’t save it

#148

Post by emrah »

Exaggeration sells newspapers and blog posts :D

That's what they said about Microsoft but it was able to reinvent itself and get back in the game with new leadership.

Intel certainly had its share of problems in the recent years but has plenty of cash in hand, I imagine it can do the same if it really tries.

Re: Intel is dying and we can’t save it

#149

Post by AtlasBarfed »

passive wrote: post #59
monocasa wrote: post #6

Any analysis that says that Intel's death is being precipitated by AMD and Apple rather than by TSMC is pretty much worth ignoring. The fact that they're almost equivalent to those two at 5nm when Intel is at 14nm+++++++++ shows how killer the RTL and tape out folk are at Intel. The real fight has always been at the fab layer.

Yeah, exactly this. Intel has really stumbled on fabrication the last 2-3 years, but the idea that they won't correct that ignores decades of precedent. I'm an AMD fanboy from the K6 days, and I love what Lisa Su has been able to deliver for them, but if it wasn't for Intel's stumbles, they would still be single digits at best in most markets. Look at their progress from Pentium 4 to Core 2 Duo (makes me feel real ol…

It's not like 2000, where if you're behind a good run of fab research will rocket you forward with some sweet increases in clock frequency.

We're nearing the end of the road on node shrinks, Intel can best hope to be marginally ahead on process.

What Apple's M1 shows is that a fundamental redesign is needed to get gains. Intel's problems appear to be in design, software, and business execution.

But doing a new ISA or muscling into ARM or other radical things precisely require design/software/business execution or it will utterly fail.

M1 is going to open the floodgates for ARM on PCs. That's what will kill Intel.

AMD can probably pivot, I have faith in their designers.

Re: Intel is dying and we can’t save it

#150

Post by ekianjo »

gchamonlive wrote: post #52
ekianjo wrote: post #23

How is Intel dying if AMD can't even produce enough chips to avoid being out of stock the whole time? Production bottlenecks with TSMC are a thing.

This is not limited to AMD. Gpu manufacturers are also experiencing supply shortages. The problem is that even if supply normalises, Intel has to work harder than usual to regain both consumer trust and innovation lead

> Intel has to work harder than usual to regain both consumer trust and innovation lead

Not in the enterprise market where AMD is almost completely absent so far.

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