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It's weird for Intel to be falling behind against AMD. Intel has about 10x the revenue and 10x the number of employees. Yet AMD is able to compete directly, and

It's weird for Intel to be falling behind against AMD. Intel has about 10x the revenue and 10x the number of employees. Yet AMD is able to compete directly, and even beat Intel in some areas. Good for AMD, but I'm more interested in an explanation of how Intel allowed this to happen.

quotemstr 7y ago
The writing was on the wall years ago. Intel became one of those "big company" places without much of a competitive spirit, and they started focusing more on pet projects (technical and not), internal politics, and all the other decay products of bigcorpism instead of continuing to advance chips. AMD, meanwhile, had existential pressure to get better at their core business, and it eventually worked. It's a pattern you see over and over again.
rincebrain 7y ago
Intel has always bet hard on their homegrown fab process and efficiencies winning over competitors. With 10nm, it's years overdue (we're now on 14nm++++, if my count is right), and Intel's just been incrementally iterating on Skylake in the meanwhile. I'm really looking forward to the next generation or two, when we see non-mobile 10nm+ chips from Intel and whether they can make up the lost ground between Spectre variants and AMD's gains.
- deaddodo 7y ago
  Not even Skylake. Sandy Bridge was the last major improvement to their microarchitectures, and that was in 2011. People blame this on complacency (and there was definitely some of that, as internal reports have revealed) but it also has to do with their inability to execute on their 10nm process and the fact that they've got everything tied to in-house development; while AMD is able to execute a much more mercenary approach (mixing and matching node processes, sourcing to multiple fabs, utilizing open standards vs baking their own, etc).
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
Intel has apparently been milking their comfortable first place for years. So it's not weird, they've been coasting for years as they thought the race was won. I was a little surprised, but not shocked, that Intel's best reaction to the new AMD processors was so underwhelming. Yet it's what we expect in most markets - and what happened after IE6 (or Chrome) won. Innovation stops, differentiation by anti-consumer means ramps up.
klingonopera 7y ago
I'm not sure such a comparison can hold up, e.g. those employee numbers probably include the people working in Intel's foundries, whereas AMD has outsourced that to TSMC.
thunderbird120 7y ago
Intel ties its architectures to its foundry nodes since it both designs the chips and produces them, unlike AMD. This means that they can get some extra performance but it also means that if there problems with the new node, like the ones they had with 10nm, everyone just has to sit on their hands until it's resolved. Going forward they've decided to decouple their architectures and nodes so that this doesn't happen again. Despite what other commenters are saying, this issue isn't really a result of them getting complacent. Intel's original plan for their 10nm node was actually extremely ambitious both in transistor density and in implementation of new techniques. Too ambitious, as it turned out.
- dboreham 7y ago
  I'm surprised this was a surprise. When I entered the semiconductor industry 30+ years ago the process folks were failing to deliver their fancy new 1u process.
- close04 7y ago
  > Despite what other commenters are saying, this issue isn't really a result of them getting complacent. Intel's original plan for their 10nm node was actually extremely ambitious [...] Too ambitious, as it turned out. Couldn't it be both?
  - sounds 7y ago
    Basically Intel does fine when the lowest 2 levels of management are able to keep the company functional. The decision to bet the company on 10nm came from the top (Krzanich). If the entire company is dysfunctional, no amount of low-level work can undo that: if the captain runs the ship aground, adding more sailors bailing water doesn't get the ship to its port. From the outside, Intel looks complacent. To a degree, that's true, but the inside story is more panic and confusion. The third-party vendors who provide the EUV tools are in panic mode. The leadership is in confusion mode (no amount of seppuku can make the old ways work; re-organizing those 2 levels of low-level managers can't fix this; top-down cannot turn back time and assume that 10nm will be this bad). Consumers really only see the output of the product/sales division, such as which features to disable on which SKUs. Intel is facing an actual engineering failure; there are no bloody features to disable. Taking the few 10nm parts that made it out the door and sticking them in the 14nm "10th generation" is a product/sales decision. Ignoring the people telling you 10nm is a flop - that's a CEO level decision.
lumberingjack 7y ago
They put a lot of their beans into stuff that died like Atom, "12000 Worldwide, 11 Percent" of the Intel workforce was let go becasue of the Atom chip bugs and failures.
abtinf 7y ago
> Intel has about...10x the number of employees. In all seriousness, it is a miracle Intel is able to compete at all. Pros of higher headcount: theoretically lower transaction costs for highly specialized people to work together. Cons of higher headcount: more command and control; fewer competing ideas; no market mechanism to evaluate the beat ideas; massively increased politics and executive jockeying; way more middle managers and fewer entrepreneurs; and continuing to invest in failed ventures. I’m sure there are many more cons.
ksec 7y ago
Somebody made a similar comment [1] not long ago. And I copy my reply below. I don't particularly like Intel, but that is Hardly a fair comparison. TSMC 48K employees, and $13 - $15B R&D. And even that is excluding all the ecosystem and tooling companies around TSMC. Compared to Intel which does it all by themselves. Not to mention Intel does way more than just CPU, GPU, also Memory, Network, Mobile, 5G, WiFi, FPGA, Storage Controller etc. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20646790 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20646790
Shorel 7y ago
Intel still has the marketshare and last time I checked, AMD instances in AWS have less than half the performance than similarly priced Intel instances. I am an AMD fan and my laptop is Ryzen, but I would not say AMD has already won. It is catching up fast, but they can't stop innovating.

quotemstr 7y ago

The writing was on the wall years ago. Intel became one of those "big company" places without much of a competitive spirit, and they started focusing more on pet projects (technical and not), internal politics, and all the other decay products of bigcorpism instead of continuing to advance chips. AMD, meanwhile, had existential pressure to get better at their core business, and it eventually worked. It's a pattern you see over and over again.

rincebrain 7y ago

Intel has always bet hard on their homegrown fab process and efficiencies winning over competitors. With 10nm, it's years overdue (we're now on 14nm++++, if my count is right), and Intel's just been incrementally iterating on Skylake in the meanwhile. I'm really looking forward to the next generation or two, when we see non-mobile 10nm+ chips from Intel and whether they can make up the lost ground between Spectre variants and AMD's gains.

deaddodo 7y ago
Not even Skylake. Sandy Bridge was the last major improvement to their microarchitectures, and that was in 2011. People blame this on complacency (and there was definitely some of that, as internal reports have revealed) but it also has to do with their inability to execute on their 10nm process and the fact that they've got everything tied to in-house development; while AMD is able to execute a much more mercenary approach (mixing and matching node processes, sourcing to multiple fabs, utilizing open standards vs baking their own, etc).

NeedMoreTea 7y ago

Intel has apparently been milking their comfortable first place for years. So it's not weird, they've been coasting for years as they thought the race was won. I was a little surprised, but not shocked, that Intel's best reaction to the new AMD processors was so underwhelming. Yet it's what we expect in most markets - and what happened after IE6 (or Chrome) won. Innovation stops, differentiation by anti-consumer means ramps up.

klingonopera 7y ago

I'm not sure such a comparison can hold up, e.g. those employee numbers probably include the people working in Intel's foundries, whereas AMD has outsourced that to TSMC.

thunderbird120 7y ago

Intel ties its architectures to its foundry nodes since it both designs the chips and produces them, unlike AMD. This means that they can get some extra performance but it also means that if there problems with the new node, like the ones they had with 10nm, everyone just has to sit on their hands until it's resolved. Going forward they've decided to decouple their architectures and nodes so that this doesn't happen again. Despite what other commenters are saying, this issue isn't really a result of them getting complacent. Intel's original plan for their 10nm node was actually extremely ambitious both in transistor density and in implementation of new techniques. Too ambitious, as it turned out.

dboreham 7y ago
I'm surprised this was a surprise. When I entered the semiconductor industry 30+ years ago the process folks were failing to deliver their fancy new 1u process.
close04 7y ago
> Despite what other commenters are saying, this issue isn't really a result of them getting complacent. Intel's original plan for their 10nm node was actually extremely ambitious [...] Too ambitious, as it turned out. Couldn't it be both?
- sounds 7y ago
  Basically Intel does fine when the lowest 2 levels of management are able to keep the company functional. The decision to bet the company on 10nm came from the top (Krzanich). If the entire company is dysfunctional, no amount of low-level work can undo that: if the captain runs the ship aground, adding more sailors bailing water doesn't get the ship to its port. From the outside, Intel looks complacent. To a degree, that's true, but the inside story is more panic and confusion. The third-party vendors who provide the EUV tools are in panic mode. The leadership is in confusion mode (no amount of seppuku can make the old ways work; re-organizing those 2 levels of low-level managers can't fix this; top-down cannot turn back time and assume that 10nm will be this bad). Consumers really only see the output of the product/sales division, such as which features to disable on which SKUs. Intel is facing an actual engineering failure; there are no bloody features to disable. Taking the few 10nm parts that made it out the door and sticking them in the 14nm "10th generation" is a product/sales decision. Ignoring the people telling you 10nm is a flop - that's a CEO level decision.

lumberingjack 7y ago

They put a lot of their beans into stuff that died like Atom, "12000 Worldwide, 11 Percent" of the Intel workforce was let go becasue of the Atom chip bugs and failures.

abtinf 7y ago

> Intel has about...10x the number of employees. In all seriousness, it is a miracle Intel is able to compete at all. Pros of higher headcount: theoretically lower transaction costs for highly specialized people to work together. Cons of higher headcount: more command and control; fewer competing ideas; no market mechanism to evaluate the beat ideas; massively increased politics and executive jockeying; way more middle managers and fewer entrepreneurs; and continuing to invest in failed ventures. I’m sure there are many more cons.

ksec 7y ago

Somebody made a similar comment [1] not long ago. And I copy my reply below. I don't particularly like Intel, but that is Hardly a fair comparison. TSMC 48K employees, and $13 - $15B R&D. And even that is excluding all the ecosystem and tooling companies around TSMC. Compared to Intel which does it all by themselves. Not to mention Intel does way more than just CPU, GPU, also Memory, Network, Mobile, 5G, WiFi, FPGA, Storage Controller etc. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20646790 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20646790

Shorel 7y ago

Intel still has the marketshare and last time I checked, AMD instances in AWS have less than half the performance than similarly priced Intel instances. I am an AMD fan and my laptop is Ryzen, but I would not say AMD has already won. It is catching up fast, but they can't stop innovating.