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There is one important additional fact one ought to keep in mind when reading something like this: Intel derives much of its competitive advantage from its abi

There is one important additional fact one ought to keep in mind when reading something like this: Intel derives much of its competitive advantage from its ability to manufacture. This means that a lot of Intel's advantage will only express itself when the market grows really large. There have been a number of times when other companies beat Intel to a new technology (introducing, say, the 64 Bit chip several months ahead), but when the market took off and the cycle began, only Intel was able to deliver in sufficient quantity. I don't know what the total market for a particular chip is likely to be, or how fast it will get there.

vonmoltke 10y ago
IMO, Intel's greatest weakness is that they got so large on such a relatively narrow set of product lines. Their fabs are all optimized for massive runs of dies, unlike their competitors in the fab space. It makes them far less agile.
RI_Swamp_Yankee 10y ago
ARM is a very compeitive field of a number of manufacturers, building chips for billions of devices. The advantage is no longer Intel's. More, the Great Old Ones - IBM with their zSeries and Power8 and now Oracle with SPARC of all things, are making a play for the server racks again. They're trapped between the massive economies of scale ARM is enjoying at the low end, and improvements in lowering cost and increasing yield for small batches of fancy and performant chips by the big R&D houses at the fat-margined high end. The middle of the road is shrinking fast.
- shortsightedsid 10y ago
  Sun didn't fab the Sparc themselves and therefore it's unlikey that Oracle will. AFAIK they were fabbed in companies like TI. Source: TI's annual report from 2007 http://investor.ti.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1193125-07-42451&CIK=97476 http://investor.ti.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1193125-07-424... Therefore, Intel's competitive advantage of running their own fabs could keep them ahead in the server space as well.
  - fra 10y ago
    TSMC fabs the SPARC chips. Source: I worked on the SPARC systems, but this info is a quick google search away.
AnimalMuppet 10y ago
Well, the phone market's pretty large already, by any definition...
nl 10y ago
This just isn't correct. Intel's big advantage has been their ability to reliably and continually improve their manufacturing process, and for this to reliably and continually deliver performance improvements (the tick/tock strategy). There have been a number of times when other companies beat Intel to a new technology (introducing, say, the 64 Bit chip several months ahead), but when the market took off and the cycle began, only Intel was able to deliver in sufficient quantity. This is entirely untrue. AMD delivered a better consumer-focused 64bit architecture, and for an entire generation the Athlon outperformed the Pentium4. Yes, Intel sold plenty, but AMD did too. That was the last time Intel made a misstep in their x64 product line. Nowdays, desktop chips are facing some challenges. TSMC, Samsung and other are able to deliver plenty of ARM chips to market for the phone and tablet chips. Nvidia is increasingly eating the compute market.
- projectramo 10y ago
  You've said this isn't correct a few times but nothing you've said in between contradicts anything you seem to disagree with.
  - nl 10y ago
    I read your point as being that they can manufacture large volumes ("only Intel was able to deliver in sufficient quantity"). This wasn't the case during the x64 transition, which was the example you used. To quote Wikipedia: In commercial terms, the Athlon "Classic" was an enormous success not just because of its own merits, but also because Intel endured a series of major production, design, and quality control issues at this time. In particular, Intel's transition to the 180 nm production process, starting in late 1999 and running through to mid-2000, suffered delays. There was a shortage of Pentium III parts.[citation needed] In contrast, AMD enjoyed a remarkably smooth process transition and had ample supplies available, causing Athlon sales to become quite strong[1] However, that was during the early 2000s. Since 2007, Intel has continually improved their processes and architectures on a reliable timeline[2], and haven't had any significant problems delivering those continual improvements. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athlon#Athlon_.22Classic.22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athlon#Athlon_.22Classic.22 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tick-Tock_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tick-Tock_model

vonmoltke 10y ago

IMO, Intel's greatest weakness is that they got so large on such a relatively narrow set of product lines. Their fabs are all optimized for massive runs of dies, unlike their competitors in the fab space. It makes them far less agile.

RI_Swamp_Yankee 10y ago

ARM is a very compeitive field of a number of manufacturers, building chips for billions of devices. The advantage is no longer Intel's. More, the Great Old Ones - IBM with their zSeries and Power8 and now Oracle with SPARC of all things, are making a play for the server racks again. They're trapped between the massive economies of scale ARM is enjoying at the low end, and improvements in lowering cost and increasing yield for small batches of fancy and performant chips by the big R&D houses at the fat-margined high end. The middle of the road is shrinking fast.

shortsightedsid 10y ago
Sun didn't fab the Sparc themselves and therefore it's unlikey that Oracle will. AFAIK they were fabbed in companies like TI. Source: TI's annual report from 2007 http://investor.ti.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1193125-07-42451&CIK=97476 http://investor.ti.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1193125-07-424... Therefore, Intel's competitive advantage of running their own fabs could keep them ahead in the server space as well.
- fra 10y ago
  TSMC fabs the SPARC chips. Source: I worked on the SPARC systems, but this info is a quick google search away.

AnimalMuppet 10y ago

Well, the phone market's pretty large already, by any definition...

nl 10y ago

This just isn't correct. Intel's big advantage has been their ability to reliably and continually improve their manufacturing process, and for this to reliably and continually deliver performance improvements (the tick/tock strategy). There have been a number of times when other companies beat Intel to a new technology (introducing, say, the 64 Bit chip several months ahead), but when the market took off and the cycle began, only Intel was able to deliver in sufficient quantity. This is entirely untrue. AMD delivered a better consumer-focused 64bit architecture, and for an entire generation the Athlon outperformed the Pentium4. Yes, Intel sold plenty, but AMD did too. That was the last time Intel made a misstep in their x64 product line. Nowdays, desktop chips are facing some challenges. TSMC, Samsung and other are able to deliver plenty of ARM chips to market for the phone and tablet chips. Nvidia is increasingly eating the compute market.

projectramo 10y ago
You've said this isn't correct a few times but nothing you've said in between contradicts anything you seem to disagree with.
- nl 10y ago
  I read your point as being that they can manufacture large volumes ("only Intel was able to deliver in sufficient quantity"). This wasn't the case during the x64 transition, which was the example you used. To quote Wikipedia: In commercial terms, the Athlon "Classic" was an enormous success not just because of its own merits, but also because Intel endured a series of major production, design, and quality control issues at this time. In particular, Intel's transition to the 180 nm production process, starting in late 1999 and running through to mid-2000, suffered delays. There was a shortage of Pentium III parts.[citation needed] In contrast, AMD enjoyed a remarkably smooth process transition and had ample supplies available, causing Athlon sales to become quite strong[1] However, that was during the early 2000s. Since 2007, Intel has continually improved their processes and architectures on a reliable timeline[2], and haven't had any significant problems delivering those continual improvements. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athlon#Athlon_.22Classic.22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athlon#Athlon_.22Classic.22 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tick-Tock_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tick-Tock_model