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I don't know what happened to Intel. Whatever it was, it will be studied for years in Harvard Business School and the likes. They've been consistently a few nod

I don't know what happened to Intel. Whatever it was, it will be studied for years in Harvard Business School and the likes. They've been consistently a few nodes ahead of the entire industry for decades. But, whatever it was, it was bad. They've been stuck basically at the same node for 5 years or more. And, according to the article, their next CPU will still be at 14nm, which is completely nuts. There's no way you can compete with such brute force disadvantage. It's remarkable to watch, but I wouldn't count on Intel getting their act together anytime soon.

adriancr 6y ago
I think they missed the boat with EUV and tried using existing tech to reach 10/7nm https://www.tomshardware.com/news/tsmc-euv-tools-order https://www.tomshardware.com/news/tsmc-euv-tools-order TSMC is making massive orders and seems to already be using that. Intel hasn't even started - "Intel is also expected to start deploying EUVL systems sometimes in 2022 when it starts making chips using its 7 nm node."
- tambourine_man 6y ago
  Sure, but why? How have they become this blind and stagnant? Their architecture has always been on the mediocre side but manufacturing has been uncontested for almost 50 years. What makes them suddenly hit a wall while everyone else plowed through?
  - ip26 6y ago
    If the "wall" was the current wavelengths (ArF) just don't cut it, then the competition has gone around the wall with EUV. I have no insider knowledge but EUV is super expensive. It could be that the bean counters tried to delay one node too long.
cbozeman 6y ago
Everyone knows what happened to Intel. They bet everything on their 10nm process - which has greater transistor density than TSMC's 7nm process - and they lost. Intel flew too close to the sun and their wings melted. The vitriol everyone has for them is based on the fact they could have been pumping out cheap 4 / 6 / 8 core chips for people, but instead held the entire world of computing at basically quad-core CPU level for the better part of a decade. And I share that vitriol. I'm happy they're suffering and are in pain. I hope the same thing happens to NVIDIA. I hope the same thing happens to AMD. I relish when a company and when people are made to suffer when they hold back our technological process in the name of fucking quarterly profits.
- oblio 6y ago
  > I hope the same thing happens to AMD. Why AMD? > I relish when a company and when people are made to suffer when they hold back our technological process in the name of fucking quarterly profits. Apple is doing the same thing. This only helps Apple, it's a proprietary design that's not even standard ARM, they have extensions. And it won't ever be available outside of Apple products.
  - scoopertrooper 6y ago
    > Why AMD? I think OP is saying that once AMD reaches the dominant market position that they hope some upstart comes in and takes them out of their comfort zone.
- tambourine_man 6y ago
  I don't think it's as clear cut as you make it sound. They've been through dozens of node transitions, some very challenging, to the point of pundits claiming it couldn't be done because physics (300nm comes to mind, turns out, masks interference came to the rescue, or something like that). They also reinvented them selves as a CPU company, went for lower prices with the Celeron, bit the bullet on Itanium and embraced AMD's x86-64, backpedaled the Pentium 4 thermal disaster and went from Pentium 3 into the Core architecture, took the server and HPC market by assault… Never have I seen them this lost and in denial.
  - cbozeman 6y ago
    Oh, you mean overall why do they fucking suck so hardcore? That's also an easy two-part answer, look at their CEO and former CEO. Kraznich or however you spell his name, never knew a time (as CEO) when Intel wasn't top dog (and I'm not talking about 6 months of AMD being on top with Athlon 64), so he's never been hungry. In fact, his "dismissal" from Intel for hashtagMeeEeEToOoO is nonsense. They had been dating for years, before the anti-frat policy was put into place, and their relationship was cleared by HR; Brian got axed because someone had to take the fall for 10nm sucking so much donkey dick. The new guy isn't even an engineer, he's an MBA. Anything Intel does under his leadership will be solely the result of everyone but him. Contrast this with AMD, where Dr. Lisa Su is an amazing engineer and also a brilliant businesslady. Part two is culture. Intel is full of arrogant jackasses who are in denial about how awesome they are. Turns out AMD and Apple have legitimate badasses designing their chips, but they also have managers that aren't causing unnecessary conflict between different teams. This same shit happened to Microsoft years ago too, by the way... turns out causing a lot of conflict on your teams in the name of 'dA cReAm riSing To ThE Top!' is a fucking idiotic management style, which should have been obvious to these sub-geniuses if they'd spend more time in their biology classes - humans are a collaborative species.
gwbas1c 6y ago
> I don't know what happened to Intel. I worked for Intel for a few years, 2005-2007. It's hard to put into words what happened to Intel. The simplest way for me to explain it is that the employees didn't take risks. A different way to explain it is that most people at the company were too career focused then focused on the actual business. But this is how disruption happens! Major players like Intel can always see where the industry is going, at a high level, but the rules of each generation in an industry are always murky. IMO, the "ARM" generation of PCs is a shift to vertical integration. Intel set itself up for horizontal integration, and the openness of ARM means that the lines between "Computer manufacturer and CPU manufacturer" are going to increasingly blur. Intel's business basically treats PC manufacturers like franchises; and Intel's a culture focuses more on career, and less on risk and business. This means that they're going to increasingly have trouble adapting to the new rules that come in the "ARM" generation.
- tambourine_man 6y ago
  Thanks for that. If you can share, what do you think could be done at the higher level to prevent this?
  - gwbas1c 6y ago
    So, I'm basing this on "The Innovator's Dilemma:" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma One thing they could do is invest in ARM manufacturers, and / or startups that are in the ARM business. As these companies grow and Intel shrinks, slowly let the investments eat themselves from the inside. For example, every few years one of Intel's fabs could be traded to one of their ARM investments. Later, as executives retire, leadership from the ARM manufacturers or startups become Intel executives. (Edit: This is what Disney did with Pixar.) Another thing they can do is very openly admit that they are being disrupted. The CEO can basically dictate that they have to get into the ARM market and sell ARM chips according to similar terms as existing ARM manufacturers. According to "The Innovator's Dilemma," this approach is hard to do. (Edit: It's hard to do because institutional momentum and personal habits and assumptions are very hard to break.) And, another thing is that Intel could start a business unit that behaves like a startup. It would get the majority of the CEO's attention; with running the existing business falling to other executives and managers. This new business unit would follow the ARM rules; and it would grow at the expense of the rest of the business. Intel might even need to sell their own computers. Honestly, I suggest reading the book. It explains it better than I can. (I also suggest watching how major car manufacturers switch to Electric. GM and VW seem to be doing this.)
socialdemocrat 6y ago
Same as Boeing. The engineers in charge who knew what they were doing got kicked out and replace led by bean counters and MBAs. It is how most big engineering companies get destroyed. No big mystery really. The Wall Street thinking is poison. Steve Jobs was terrified of this happening to Apple which is why he made sure product people had a lot of power.

adriancr 6y ago

I think they missed the boat with EUV and tried using existing tech to reach 10/7nm https://www.tomshardware.com/news/tsmc-euv-tools-order https://www.tomshardware.com/news/tsmc-euv-tools-order TSMC is making massive orders and seems to already be using that. Intel hasn't even started - "Intel is also expected to start deploying EUVL systems sometimes in 2022 when it starts making chips using its 7 nm node."

tambourine_man 6y ago
Sure, but why? How have they become this blind and stagnant? Their architecture has always been on the mediocre side but manufacturing has been uncontested for almost 50 years. What makes them suddenly hit a wall while everyone else plowed through?
- ip26 6y ago
  If the "wall" was the current wavelengths (ArF) just don't cut it, then the competition has gone around the wall with EUV. I have no insider knowledge but EUV is super expensive. It could be that the bean counters tried to delay one node too long.

cbozeman 6y ago

Everyone knows what happened to Intel. They bet everything on their 10nm process - which has greater transistor density than TSMC's 7nm process - and they lost. Intel flew too close to the sun and their wings melted. The vitriol everyone has for them is based on the fact they could have been pumping out cheap 4 / 6 / 8 core chips for people, but instead held the entire world of computing at basically quad-core CPU level for the better part of a decade. And I share that vitriol. I'm happy they're suffering and are in pain. I hope the same thing happens to NVIDIA. I hope the same thing happens to AMD. I relish when a company and when people are made to suffer when they hold back our technological process in the name of fucking quarterly profits.

oblio 6y ago
> I hope the same thing happens to AMD. Why AMD? > I relish when a company and when people are made to suffer when they hold back our technological process in the name of fucking quarterly profits. Apple is doing the same thing. This only helps Apple, it's a proprietary design that's not even standard ARM, they have extensions. And it won't ever be available outside of Apple products.
- scoopertrooper 6y ago
  > Why AMD? I think OP is saying that once AMD reaches the dominant market position that they hope some upstart comes in and takes them out of their comfort zone.
tambourine_man 6y ago
I don't think it's as clear cut as you make it sound. They've been through dozens of node transitions, some very challenging, to the point of pundits claiming it couldn't be done because physics (300nm comes to mind, turns out, masks interference came to the rescue, or something like that). They also reinvented them selves as a CPU company, went for lower prices with the Celeron, bit the bullet on Itanium and embraced AMD's x86-64, backpedaled the Pentium 4 thermal disaster and went from Pentium 3 into the Core architecture, took the server and HPC market by assault… Never have I seen them this lost and in denial.
- cbozeman 6y ago
  Oh, you mean overall why do they fucking suck so hardcore? That's also an easy two-part answer, look at their CEO and former CEO. Kraznich or however you spell his name, never knew a time (as CEO) when Intel wasn't top dog (and I'm not talking about 6 months of AMD being on top with Athlon 64), so he's never been hungry. In fact, his "dismissal" from Intel for hashtagMeeEeEToOoO is nonsense. They had been dating for years, before the anti-frat policy was put into place, and their relationship was cleared by HR; Brian got axed because someone had to take the fall for 10nm sucking so much donkey dick. The new guy isn't even an engineer, he's an MBA. Anything Intel does under his leadership will be solely the result of everyone but him. Contrast this with AMD, where Dr. Lisa Su is an amazing engineer and also a brilliant businesslady. Part two is culture. Intel is full of arrogant jackasses who are in denial about how awesome they are. Turns out AMD and Apple have legitimate badasses designing their chips, but they also have managers that aren't causing unnecessary conflict between different teams. This same shit happened to Microsoft years ago too, by the way... turns out causing a lot of conflict on your teams in the name of 'dA cReAm riSing To ThE Top!' is a fucking idiotic management style, which should have been obvious to these sub-geniuses if they'd spend more time in their biology classes - humans are a collaborative species.

gwbas1c 6y ago

> I don't know what happened to Intel. I worked for Intel for a few years, 2005-2007. It's hard to put into words what happened to Intel. The simplest way for me to explain it is that the employees didn't take risks. A different way to explain it is that most people at the company were too career focused then focused on the actual business. But this is how disruption happens! Major players like Intel can always see where the industry is going, at a high level, but the rules of each generation in an industry are always murky. IMO, the "ARM" generation of PCs is a shift to vertical integration. Intel set itself up for horizontal integration, and the openness of ARM means that the lines between "Computer manufacturer and CPU manufacturer" are going to increasingly blur. Intel's business basically treats PC manufacturers like franchises; and Intel's a culture focuses more on career, and less on risk and business. This means that they're going to increasingly have trouble adapting to the new rules that come in the "ARM" generation.

tambourine_man 6y ago
Thanks for that. If you can share, what do you think could be done at the higher level to prevent this?
- gwbas1c 6y ago
  So, I'm basing this on "The Innovator's Dilemma:" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma One thing they could do is invest in ARM manufacturers, and / or startups that are in the ARM business. As these companies grow and Intel shrinks, slowly let the investments eat themselves from the inside. For example, every few years one of Intel's fabs could be traded to one of their ARM investments. Later, as executives retire, leadership from the ARM manufacturers or startups become Intel executives. (Edit: This is what Disney did with Pixar.) Another thing they can do is very openly admit that they are being disrupted. The CEO can basically dictate that they have to get into the ARM market and sell ARM chips according to similar terms as existing ARM manufacturers. According to "The Innovator's Dilemma," this approach is hard to do. (Edit: It's hard to do because institutional momentum and personal habits and assumptions are very hard to break.) And, another thing is that Intel could start a business unit that behaves like a startup. It would get the majority of the CEO's attention; with running the existing business falling to other executives and managers. This new business unit would follow the ARM rules; and it would grow at the expense of the rest of the business. Intel might even need to sell their own computers. Honestly, I suggest reading the book. It explains it better than I can. (I also suggest watching how major car manufacturers switch to Electric. GM and VW seem to be doing this.)

socialdemocrat 6y ago

Same as Boeing. The engineers in charge who knew what they were doing got kicked out and replace led by bean counters and MBAs. It is how most big engineering companies get destroyed. No big mystery really. The Wall Street thinking is poison. Steve Jobs was terrified of this happening to Apple which is why he made sure product people had a lot of power.