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Fast forward a few years. Look at the time it takes to design chips. Look at where the market and tech is going (M1 and AMD especially). Compare with RIM and No

by Torkel 6y ago

Fast forward a few years. Look at the time it takes to design chips. Look at where the market and tech is going (M1 and AMD especially). Compare with RIM and Nokia. There is a "roadrunner" effect where a colossal company will continue for a few years on pure momentum. There are so many things speaking against Intel. And the facts you bring up as speaking for Intel seams more like short term momentum to me. I would guess at the following conversation in 5-10 years: - "How did Intel die?" - "Well, first slowly. Then quickly."

totalZero 6y ago
Semiconductor demand is so high right now that any company that makes processors is going to print money in the short term. It's a "right place, right time" situation. Intel's long-term problem is loss of market share, but if you're going to lose market share, you're more likely to survive if it happens when the whole market is growing. There's not much that a company so heavily invested in x86 can do in the face of Apple Silicon, aside from executing well on 7nm and bringing it to market ahead of schedule. I don't see much of a similarity between Intel CPUs and Blackberry phones, considering that many flagship notebooks (even Apple's) have Intel inside. I for one am heralding the new era of voracious semiconductor demand, and am rooting for Intel to get its game face on and turn things around before the opportunity passes.
incrudible 6y ago
The idea here must be that somehow Apple or AMD have figured out the magic sauce to making faster processors, while Intel of all companies is oblivious to it and won't be able to catch up. In reality, there is nothing that Apple or AMD are doing that Intel could not also do, isn't already doing, or isn't in a hurry to also do. Consider that at 14nm+++++, Intel still manages to outpace AMD with its 7nm CPUs and latest architecture. AMD competes mainly on price, which is not a great position to be in. Intel's profit margins are massively better. It's possible that x86 will become less relevant in the future, but in that case Intel will still be one of the be best chip designers in the industry. They will once again produce ARM chips, perhaps borrow one or two insights from Apple's architecture. They will continue to outsource manufacturing to other fabs, perhaps even become fabless.
- willis936 6y ago
  >In reality, there is nothing that Apple or AMD are doing that Intel could not also do, isn't already doing, or isn't in a hurry to also do. On the contrary, Intel has refused to do any architectural innovation for nearly 20 years. They are capable, but overly conservative. They should have been in a hurry 10 years ago. It's well documented that they weren't and were resented for it. AMD came up with a winning strategy (multi-die packaging) and Intel still doesn't seem in a hurry to catch up. You could swap "AMD" in that sentence with "Apple" and maintain the meaning. When superscalar or simultaneous multithreading came out you didn't see competitors mill about waiting for the customers to forget about the advantages.
  - incrudible 6y ago
    The question is, are they in a hurry to catch up? What is the market that AMD is actually taking over with its multi-chip packages, and at what cost? Just because AMD may be winning in Cinebench doesn't mean it's winning in the business side. Multi-chip packages have downsides that become obvious in certain enterprise workloads, so the question becomes: Is it worth giving up on the monolithic approach, or adding multi-chip products, in order to completely dominate the market, even when that is not more profitable? Clearly, the answer for Intel must be "no", otherwise they would being doing it.
    - willis936 6y ago
      I think the reason Intel is not doing multi-die packages is because the R&D to make it work is large and they don't want to take on that risk. What are the downsides, exactly? Thread-to-thread latency is the key one that comes to mind. It is far cheaper to make a multi-die package because yields are so much higher for any given node. The business advantages are great. The bleak picture for Intel that is being painted is warranted.
      - galaxyLogic 6y ago
        AMD got downgraded today because Intel has new CEO. I don't know why the new CEO would be better, but they say fish rots from the head. https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/AMD?p=AMD&.tsrc=fin-srch https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/AMD?p=AMD&.tsrc=fin-srch
kllrnohj 6y ago
Intel's chip designs are still fine, though. Tiger Lake's IPC gains are right in line with Zen 3's IPC gains over Zen 2. And Xe looks to be a great iGPU. Which means Intel is more or less on equal design footing with AMD, they're just having trouble getting it built. And Intel has multiple huge revenue streams that are not in question at all. All their networking stuff, for example (everyone, even on AMD, still goes for motherboards with Intel LAN instead of anyone else's, and same with wifi). And things like Optane. And all their tooling & software suites. Intel's CPU division is struggling to get wins, but Intel overall as a company isn't.
- bcrl 6y ago
  Throw in power consumption and Intel's stagnation starts to show. Look at their lasted chips having a 250W power limit when turboing -- almost double AMD! That's a pretty hard barrier to overcome without catching up on process technology.

by Torkel 6y ago

totalZero 6y ago

Semiconductor demand is so high right now that any company that makes processors is going to print money in the short term. It's a "right place, right time" situation. Intel's long-term problem is loss of market share, but if you're going to lose market share, you're more likely to survive if it happens when the whole market is growing. There's not much that a company so heavily invested in x86 can do in the face of Apple Silicon, aside from executing well on 7nm and bringing it to market ahead of schedule. I don't see much of a similarity between Intel CPUs and Blackberry phones, considering that many flagship notebooks (even Apple's) have Intel inside. I for one am heralding the new era of voracious semiconductor demand, and am rooting for Intel to get its game face on and turn things around before the opportunity passes.

incrudible 6y ago

The idea here must be that somehow Apple or AMD have figured out the magic sauce to making faster processors, while Intel of all companies is oblivious to it and won't be able to catch up. In reality, there is nothing that Apple or AMD are doing that Intel could not also do, isn't already doing, or isn't in a hurry to also do. Consider that at 14nm+++++, Intel still manages to outpace AMD with its 7nm CPUs and latest architecture. AMD competes mainly on price, which is not a great position to be in. Intel's profit margins are massively better. It's possible that x86 will become less relevant in the future, but in that case Intel will still be one of the be best chip designers in the industry. They will once again produce ARM chips, perhaps borrow one or two insights from Apple's architecture. They will continue to outsource manufacturing to other fabs, perhaps even become fabless.

willis936 6y ago
>In reality, there is nothing that Apple or AMD are doing that Intel could not also do, isn't already doing, or isn't in a hurry to also do. On the contrary, Intel has refused to do any architectural innovation for nearly 20 years. They are capable, but overly conservative. They should have been in a hurry 10 years ago. It's well documented that they weren't and were resented for it. AMD came up with a winning strategy (multi-die packaging) and Intel still doesn't seem in a hurry to catch up. You could swap "AMD" in that sentence with "Apple" and maintain the meaning. When superscalar or simultaneous multithreading came out you didn't see competitors mill about waiting for the customers to forget about the advantages.
- incrudible 6y ago
  The question is, are they in a hurry to catch up? What is the market that AMD is actually taking over with its multi-chip packages, and at what cost? Just because AMD may be winning in Cinebench doesn't mean it's winning in the business side. Multi-chip packages have downsides that become obvious in certain enterprise workloads, so the question becomes: Is it worth giving up on the monolithic approach, or adding multi-chip products, in order to completely dominate the market, even when that is not more profitable? Clearly, the answer for Intel must be "no", otherwise they would being doing it.
  - willis936 6y ago
    I think the reason Intel is not doing multi-die packages is because the R&D to make it work is large and they don't want to take on that risk. What are the downsides, exactly? Thread-to-thread latency is the key one that comes to mind. It is far cheaper to make a multi-die package because yields are so much higher for any given node. The business advantages are great. The bleak picture for Intel that is being painted is warranted.
    - galaxyLogic 6y ago
      AMD got downgraded today because Intel has new CEO. I don't know why the new CEO would be better, but they say fish rots from the head. https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/AMD?p=AMD&.tsrc=fin-srch https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/AMD?p=AMD&.tsrc=fin-srch

kllrnohj 6y ago

Intel's chip designs are still fine, though. Tiger Lake's IPC gains are right in line with Zen 3's IPC gains over Zen 2. And Xe looks to be a great iGPU. Which means Intel is more or less on equal design footing with AMD, they're just having trouble getting it built. And Intel has multiple huge revenue streams that are not in question at all. All their networking stuff, for example (everyone, even on AMD, still goes for motherboards with Intel LAN instead of anyone else's, and same with wifi). And things like Optane. And all their tooling & software suites. Intel's CPU division is struggling to get wins, but Intel overall as a company isn't.

bcrl 6y ago
Throw in power consumption and Intel's stagnation starts to show. Look at their lasted chips having a 250W power limit when turboing -- almost double AMD! That's a pretty hard barrier to overcome without catching up on process technology.