4 ms·

Not a good start when you count 4 incorrect statements in the first few paragraphs of the article.

by ethbro 7y ago

sanxiyn 7y ago
What are those statements?
- dfrage 7y ago
  I see simplifications in the the first six paragraphs, for example ignoring its leading role in commercially available DRAM starting around the same time it launched the 4004, but that's not very relevant after they exited the market in the 1980s due to Japanese fabs achieving much higher yields. But nothing I'd outright label "incorrect".
- ethbro 7y ago
  Generally lazy writing or attempting to jazz up the piece without enough expertise to know when you've changed the meaning. "Intel dominates the market for chips that power desktop PCs." It has a bit over 85% market share, in a two-player market. Furthermore, because they didn't say CPU like they should have, they're technically inaccurate. Intel network PHYs don't "dominant" consumer boards, last I checked. "demand for server chips is growing, propelled by the profusion of internet-connected gizmos, from smartphones to cars." Really? IoT is the catalyst? "missed the arrival of the smartphone" Unfair and reductive. Intel didn't "miss" the smartphone: it saw it coming, didn't have a product that fit, looked at the margins, and didn't think it was worth investing. That probably wasn't a bad move in hindsight. "GPUs, specialised chips designed for video-game graphics" That tortures the definition of a different microarchitecture. "And its manufacturing technology, which used to advance with such metronomic regularity that Intel called its business plan “tick-tock”" This was it for me. Intel literally moved to the tick-tock cadency because Moore's Law was slowing down. Before, it was just an unending stream of process shrinks. Tick-tock accepted that there was now time for an entire microarchitecture update between process shrinks. "The firm’s latest generation of products, built on its “ten nanometre” manufacturing process" Also, since when do we air quote measurements?
  - pjc50 7y ago
    Intel did try to get into phones, they just failed. I have one of the Asus ZenFones with an Intel processor running x86 Android.
    - ethbro 7y ago
      They tried, but the power-optimized Atoms were still a hedged bet. They threw some spaghetti at the wall to see if it would stick, while keeping the core suitable for other markets if it didn't.
  - uj8efdjkfdshf 7y ago
    >since when do we air quote measurements? Ever since the process name stopped being indicative of the minimum metal pitch, or any aspect of the process itself.

Not a good start when you count 4 incorrect statements in the first few paragraphs of the article.

by ethbro 7y ago

Not a good start when you count 4 incorrect statements in the first few paragraphs of the article.

sanxiyn 7y ago

What are those statements?

dfrage 7y ago
I see simplifications in the the first six paragraphs, for example ignoring its leading role in commercially available DRAM starting around the same time it launched the 4004, but that's not very relevant after they exited the market in the 1980s due to Japanese fabs achieving much higher yields. But nothing I'd outright label "incorrect".
ethbro 7y ago
Generally lazy writing or attempting to jazz up the piece without enough expertise to know when you've changed the meaning. "Intel dominates the market for chips that power desktop PCs." It has a bit over 85% market share, in a two-player market. Furthermore, because they didn't say CPU like they should have, they're technically inaccurate. Intel network PHYs don't "dominant" consumer boards, last I checked. "demand for server chips is growing, propelled by the profusion of internet-connected gizmos, from smartphones to cars." Really? IoT is the catalyst? "missed the arrival of the smartphone" Unfair and reductive. Intel didn't "miss" the smartphone: it saw it coming, didn't have a product that fit, looked at the margins, and didn't think it was worth investing. That probably wasn't a bad move in hindsight. "GPUs, specialised chips designed for video-game graphics" That tortures the definition of a different microarchitecture. "And its manufacturing technology, which used to advance with such metronomic regularity that Intel called its business plan “tick-tock”" This was it for me. Intel literally moved to the tick-tock cadency because Moore's Law was slowing down. Before, it was just an unending stream of process shrinks. Tick-tock accepted that there was now time for an entire microarchitecture update between process shrinks. "The firm’s latest generation of products, built on its “ten nanometre” manufacturing process" Also, since when do we air quote measurements?
- pjc50 7y ago
  Intel did try to get into phones, they just failed. I have one of the Asus ZenFones with an Intel processor running x86 Android.
  - ethbro 7y ago
    They tried, but the power-optimized Atoms were still a hedged bet. They threw some spaghetti at the wall to see if it would stick, while keeping the core suitable for other markets if it didn't.
- uj8efdjkfdshf 7y ago
  >since when do we air quote measurements? Ever since the process name stopped being indicative of the minimum metal pitch, or any aspect of the process itself.