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Agner is legendary, but this piece is too Intel-focused. It operates under the assumption that only Intel can push the industry forward. Yes, we're unlikely to

by eliben 11y ago

Agner is legendary, but this piece is too Intel-focused. It operates under the assumption that only Intel can push the industry forward. Yes, we're unlikely to see a lot of further process reductions with Silicon, and yes power is a problem; but this is a large market with many powerful players, and assuming that it will stall because Intel stalls is extremely short-sighted.

cma 11y ago
>We can assume that Intel have no plans of making vector registers bigger than 2048 bits because they would not fit the 64-bit mask registers. Yeah.. seems overly specific and fatalistic.
scholia 11y ago
The reality, at the moment, is that Intel may well be the only company that can push the industry forward. Each time you introduce a new processor node, the cost of the fab goes up dramatically, and now we're talking about $14 billion for the next Samsung fab. (This is Rock's Law.) If you go back a few years, there were a couple of dozen chip manufacturers around the leading edge, including Toshiba, Siemens, Sony, Fujitsu, NEC and Philips. With each new step, one or two of these companies can't find or justify the money to build a very expensive fab for the next process, so they drop out. Today, we're down to four or five: Intel, TSMC, Global Foundries (ex AMD+IBM), Samsung and maybe Europe's STM. So Toshiba, Siemens, Sony, Fujitsu, NEC, Philips and several others have all dropped out. Which of the four or five leading companies have got both the money and the need to keep pushing on? Looks to me like Intel and Samsung. The only other option I can see is Apple putting a ton of money into TSMC, which current makes most of its money fabricating chips for mid-market companies like Mediatek. That's a possibility because it would stop Apple from being too reliant on Samsung. Rock's law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock's_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock's_law
- eliben 11y ago
  But Intel is far from being the richest tech company out there. What's $14bln for Apple with $100s of billions of cash in the bank? It's not that much for Google either, and and other tech giants.
  - scholia 11y ago
    Which is why I suggested that Apple might put money into TSMC.... On the other hand, having pots of money doesn't actually mean a company can do anything significant in a particular area. Look at all the knock-offs in the Google Graveyard for examples.

by eliben 11y ago

cma 11y ago

>We can assume that Intel have no plans of making vector registers bigger than 2048 bits because they would not fit the 64-bit mask registers. Yeah.. seems overly specific and fatalistic.

scholia 11y ago

The reality, at the moment, is that Intel may well be the only company that can push the industry forward. Each time you introduce a new processor node, the cost of the fab goes up dramatically, and now we're talking about $14 billion for the next Samsung fab. (This is Rock's Law.) If you go back a few years, there were a couple of dozen chip manufacturers around the leading edge, including Toshiba, Siemens, Sony, Fujitsu, NEC and Philips. With each new step, one or two of these companies can't find or justify the money to build a very expensive fab for the next process, so they drop out. Today, we're down to four or five: Intel, TSMC, Global Foundries (ex AMD+IBM), Samsung and maybe Europe's STM. So Toshiba, Siemens, Sony, Fujitsu, NEC, Philips and several others have all dropped out. Which of the four or five leading companies have got both the money and the need to keep pushing on? Looks to me like Intel and Samsung. The only other option I can see is Apple putting a ton of money into TSMC, which current makes most of its money fabricating chips for mid-market companies like Mediatek. That's a possibility because it would stop Apple from being too reliant on Samsung. Rock's law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock's_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock's_law

eliben 11y ago
But Intel is far from being the richest tech company out there. What's $14bln for Apple with $100s of billions of cash in the bank? It's not that much for Google either, and and other tech giants.
- scholia 11y ago
  Which is why I suggested that Apple might put money into TSMC.... On the other hand, having pots of money doesn't actually mean a company can do anything significant in a particular area. Look at all the knock-offs in the Google Graveyard for examples.