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Intel Problems

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Re: Intel Problems

#251

Post by mc10 »

npunt wrote: post #209
ineedasername wrote: post #152

I found the geopolitical portion to be the most important aspect here. China has shown a willingness to flex its muscles on enforcing its values beyond their borders. China is smart, and plays a long game. We don't want to wake up one day and find they've flexed their muscles on their regional neighbors similar to their rare earths strong-arming from 2010-2014 and not have fab capabilities to fall back on in the West…

Ben missed an important part of the geopolitical difference between TSMC and Intel: Taiwan is much more invested in TSMC's success than America is in Intel's. Taiwan's share of the semiconductor industry is 66% and TSMC is the leader of that industry. Semiconductors helps keep Taiwan from China's encroachment because it buys them protection from allies like the US and Europe, whose economies heavily rely on them. To…

> Semiconductors helps keep Taiwan from China's encroachment because it buys them protection from allies like the US and Europe, whose economies heavily rely on them.

Are there any signed agreements that would enforce this? If China one day suddenly decides to take Taiwan, would the US or Europe step in with military forces?

Re: Intel Problems

#252

Post by oblio »

tgtweak wrote: post #182
phcordner wrote: post #160

> And in that planning the fact that TSMC’s foundries — and Samsung’s — are within easy reach of Chinese missiles is a major issue. Are processor fabs analagous to auto factories and shipyards in World War II? Is the United States military's plan for a nuclear exchange with China dependent on a steady supply of cutting edge semiconductors? Even if it is, is that strategy really going to help? This article is mostly c…

I don't feel that there is a meaningful TSMC alternative today. Samsung, Intel and GlobalFoundries are not suitable replacements for TSMC with regards to throughput or technology. The world does need some meaningful fabs outside of Taiwan/South Korea. All of the 10nm semiconductor fabrication takes place within a 750km/460mile radius circle today. That is risky. Israel, Mexico, Germany, Canada, Japan (not that it wou…

It doesn't even have to be war: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Thailand_floods#Damages_t...

Re: Intel Problems

#253

Post by mdasen »

tgtweak wrote: post #182
phcordner wrote: post #160

> And in that planning the fact that TSMC’s foundries — and Samsung’s — are within easy reach of Chinese missiles is a major issue. Are processor fabs analagous to auto factories and shipyards in World War II? Is the United States military's plan for a nuclear exchange with China dependent on a steady supply of cutting edge semiconductors? Even if it is, is that strategy really going to help? This article is mostly c…

I don't feel that there is a meaningful TSMC alternative today. Samsung, Intel and GlobalFoundries are not suitable replacements for TSMC with regards to throughput or technology. The world does need some meaningful fabs outside of Taiwan/South Korea. All of the 10nm semiconductor fabrication takes place within a 750km/460mile radius circle today. That is risky. Israel, Mexico, Germany, Canada, Japan (not that it wou…

I mostly agree that there isn't a great alternative to TSMC, but I would point out that the 2021 Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 processors are being made by Samsung with their 5nm process (in addition to their new Exynos 2100). Intel and GlobalFoundries aren't really replacements, but Samsung has been winning business for latest-generation flagship processors. Maybe it isn't as advanced as TSMC and maybe Samsung will have problems, but a lot of the 2021 flagship phones will be shipping with Samsung-manufactured 5nm processors.

Samsung seems to be keeping it close.

Re: Intel Problems

#254

Post by adrian_b »

kllrnohj wrote: post #243
adrian_b wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While you are right that due to their design CPUs like Apple M1 can reach the same single-thread performance as Intel/AMD at a much lower clock frequency and such a clock frequency could be reached much earlier, e.g. already Intel Nehalem in 2009 reached 3.3 GHz as turbo, while Sandy Bridge in 2011 had 3.4 GHz as base clock frequency, it would have been impossible to make a CPU like Apple M1 in any earlier technology…

> To achieve its very high IPC, M1 multiplies a lot of internal resources and also uses very large caches. All those require a huge number of transistors. Yes & no. Most of the M1 die isn't spent on CPU, it's spent things like GPU, neural net, and SLC cache. A "basic" dual-core CPU-only M1 would be very manufacturable back in 2011 or so. After all, Intel at some point decided to spend a whole lot of transistors addin…

True, but the M1 CPU, together with the necessary cache and memory controller still occupies about a third of the Apple M1 die.

In the Intel 32-nm process, the area would have been 30 to 40 times larger than in the TSMC 5 nm process.

The 32-nm die would have been as large as a book, many times larger than any manufacturable chip.

By 2011, 2-core CPUs would not have been competitive, but even reducing the area in half is not enough to bring the size into the realm of possible.

Re: Intel Problems

#255

Post by oblio »

cbozeman wrote: post #188

This was a well-written article, but I don't think it came from someone with a deep understanding of semiconductor technology and fabrication. Intel hasn't lost to Apple and AMD because they employ idiots, or because of their shitty company culture (in fact, they're doing surprisingly well in spite of their awful company culture). Intel lost because they made the wrong bet on the wrong type of process technology. 10…

Interesting perspective. From a paradoxical perspective, I actually want Intel to stay relevant.

I think that everyone will take advantage of the migration to ARM to push more lock in, despite the supposedly open ARM architecture.

A sort of poison pill: "you get more performance and better battery life, but you can't install apps of type A, B and C and those apps can only do X, Y and Z".

Re: Intel Problems

#256

Post by esclerofilo »

MangoCoffee wrote: post #205
oldgradstudent wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Intel can become a fab company Not unless they catch up with TSMC in process technology. Otherwise, they become an uncompetitive foundry.

>Not unless they catch up with TSMC in process technology 1. Intel doesn't have to catch up. Intel's 14nm is more than enough for a lot of fabless. Not every chip needs cutting edge node 2. split up Intel foundry into a pure play allowed Intel to build up an ecosystem like TSMC. 3. Intel's 10nm is much denser than TSMC's 7nm. Intel is not too far behind. they just needs to solve the yield problem. split up Intel's de…

The ARM business model isn't that profitable. Intel's market cap right now is about 240 billion, 6 times the amount Nvidia is paying for ARM.

Re: Intel Problems

#257

Post by spideymans »

WoodenChair wrote: post #158
JoshTko wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We actually have a lot of insight in that Intel still doesn't have a good grasp on the problem. Their 10nm was supposed to enter volume production in mid 2018, and they still haven't truly entered volume production today. Additionally Intel announced in July 2020 that their 7nm is delayed by at least a year which means they figured out their node delay problem.

> We actually have a lot of insight in that Intel still doesn't have a good grasp on the problem. Their 10nm was supposed to enter volume production in mid 2018, and they still haven't truly entered volume production today. Additionally Intel announced in July 2020 that their 7nm is delayed by at least a year which means they figured out their node delay problem. Knowing something happened is not the same as knowing…

I'll also add that it's fascinating that both 10 nm and 7 nm are having issues.

My understanding (and please correct me if I'm wrong), is that the development of manufacturing capabilities for any given node is an independent process. It's like building two houses: the construction of the second house isn't dependent on the construction of the first. Likewise, the development of 7 nm isn't dependent on the perfection of 10 nm.

This perhaps suggests that there is a deep institutional problem at Intel, impacting multiple manufacturing processes. That is something more significant that a big manufacturing problem holding up the development of one node.

Re: Intel Problems

#258

Post by oblio »

me551ah wrote: post #86

I wonder how the move from x86 to arm is going to affect desktop apps. With the move to ARM apple is already pushing it's iOS apps into MacOS. Once it becomes commonplace on Windows, it would be super easy to run Android Apps on Windows via simulation(rather than emulation which is much slower). Given that mobile apps are more lightweight and consume far less resources than their electron counterparts, would people p…

Why do you think mobile apps are more lightweight?

Android phones these days have at least 4GB or RAM and mobile apps are in general more limited plus you run fewer of them in parallel as they tend to be offloaded from RAM once the limit is reached.

Re: Intel Problems

#259

Post by _alex_ »

jayd16 wrote: post #135
ashtonkem wrote: post #10

I think one day we’re going to wake up and discover that AWS mostly runs on Graviton (ARM) and not x86. And on that day intel’s troubles will go from future to present. My standing theory is that the m1 will accelerate it. Obviously all the wholly managed AWS services (Dynamo, Kinesis, S3, etc.) can change over silently, but the issue is EC2. I have a MBP, as do all of my engineers. Within a few years all of these ma…

I guess I don't understand why the M1 makes developing on Graviton easier. It doesn't make Android or Windows ARM dev any easier. I guess the idea is to run a Linux flavor that supports both the M1 and Graviton on the macs and hope any native work is compatible?

dev in a linux vm/container on your M1 macbook, then deploy to a graviton instance.

Re: Intel Problems

#260

Post by z77dj3kl »

A question for those who've been around in tech longer: was Google really the first and "disruptive" user of x86 commodity hardware in datacenters that everyone else then lagged behind? Or was it just a general wave and shift in the landscape?
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