Intel Problems

Post by samus » Wed, Jan 20, 2021, 7:08 PM UTC

ineedasername wrote: post #353

echelon wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It appears the Republicans are all-in on the anti-China bandwagon. Now you just have to convince the Democrats. I don't think this will be hard. Anyone with a brain looking at the situation realizes we're setting ourselves up for a bleak future by continuing the present course. The globalists can focus on elevating our international partners to distribute manufacturing: Vietnam, Mexico, Africa. The nationalists can f…

My impression was that Republicans were only half-hearted about China as that issue made it's way through President Trump's administration. The general tone I felt was that things like tariffs were tolerated in support of their party's leader, not the tariffs themselves. And the backtracking on sanctions on specific Chinese firms indicated there was little/no significant GOP support pushing President Trump to follow…

Post by samus » Wed, Jan 20, 2021, 7:34 PM UTC

jabl wrote: post #388

ineedasername wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taiwan's defenses can hold up against minor probing from China, nothing truly sustained. The true deterrent to China isn't any treaty agreement to protect Taiwan, which doesn't exist. It's the realpolitik of 30,000 US troops in Taiwan. Any significant & sustained attack against Taiwan would harm US troops. They'd be little more than a speedbump for China if China acted quickly & in force, but that speedbump would req…

> Taiwan's defenses can hold up against minor probing from China, nothing truly sustained. It's the same for every small country bordering a potentially hostile much larger neighbor. Nobody excepts the small country to be able to withstand a full-scale invasion. The point is to make that invasion expensive enough to not be worth it.

Post by samus » Wed, Jan 20, 2021, 7:48 PM UTC

sobellian wrote: post #210

jng wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern process node designations (5nm, 3nm...) are not measurements any more, they are marketing terms. The actual measure of shrinking is a lot smaller than the name would mean to indicate, and not approaching the quantum limits as fast as it may seem.

If I recall correctly from my uni days, one of the big challenges with further shrinking the physical gates is that the parasitic capacitance on the gates becomes very hard to control, and the power consumption of the chip is directly related to that capacitance. Of course, nothing is so simple and I'm sure Intel can make some chips at very small process sizes, but at the cost of horrible yield.

Post by samus » Wed, Jan 20, 2021, 8:06 PM UTC

AlotOfReading wrote: post #66

varispeed wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My view is that currently the only way for Intel to salvage themselves it to go ARM route and start licensing x86 IP and perhaps even open source some bits of tech. They are unable to sustain this tech by themselves nor with AMD anymore. It seems to me when Apple releases their new CPUs I am going to have to move to that platform in order to keep up with the competition (quicker the core, I can do calculations quicke…

Are they able to even do that legally? I'm pretty sure the licensing agreement for x86 with AMD explicitly prohibited this for both parties.

Post by nine_k » Wed, Jan 20, 2021, 9:40 PM UTC

blackrock wrote: post #393

nine_k wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bet TSMC has a number of bombs planted around the most critical machines, much like Switzerland has bombs planted around most critical tunnels and bridges. Trying to grab Taiwan with force alone, even if formally successful, would mean losing its crown jewels forever.

TSMC is not really that important. It’s currently only useful for the cutting edge of CPUs, and especially for mobile phones, that can get the battery boost from using a more efficient processor. Military hardware uses CPU technology that’s 10+ years old, of which the Chinese are capable of fabricating themselves on the mainland. The stuff needs to be rugged, and likely, radiation-proofed. And besides, isn’t it easie…