4 ms·
Intel locked their designs not just to their own fabs, but to specific processes. Most other companies don't do this. It buys you better, more optimized perform
by exmadscientist 6y ago
Intel locked their designs not just to their own fabs, but to specific processes. Most other companies don't do this. It buys you better, more optimized performance, but completely prevents design transfer. This really bit Intel when their P1274 ("10nm") did not work for years, leaving manufacturing stuck on P1272 ("14nm")... with microarchitectures designed for P1274 and unable to be easily ported. They could have invested in porting -- it's not impossible, only resource-intensive -- but the manufacturing group kept insisting P1274 was about to enter HVM... for years... so the designs were never ported.
In hindsight, this appears to have been a serious blunder.
- jhallenworld 6y agoI'm curious about the design tool different between Intel and TSMC.. it's likely that Intel has non-standard tools. An indication of this is how much time it took to move Altera's FPGAs to Intel's process. https://semiaccurate.com/2019/09/23/altera-releases-stratix-fpgas-years-late/ https://semiaccurate.com/2019/09/23/altera-releases-stratix-...
- kungato 6y agoIs there any a bit bigger writeup/interview about this? Did they abandon this approach or are they still sticking with it?
- wmf 6y agoIntel announced that future cores will be portable to multiple processes, although it's not clear whether that includes non-Intel ones. It is rumored that the upcoming Rocket Lake is a 14 nm backport of Willow Cove that was originally intended for 10 nm.