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Knowing very little about the subject... Is it plausible that they wouldn’t be able to get 10nm to work, but would be able to make 7nm work? Or put differently

Knowing very little about the subject... Is it plausible that they wouldn’t be able to get 10nm to work, but would be able to make 7nm work? Or put differently, would abandoning 10nm be tantamount to abandoning the effort to develop a smaller process?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Guthur 6y ago
I am a very causal enthusiast but from my understanding there are many ways to skin a cat when it comes to process nodes hence with the company A 10nm vs company B 10nm are not equivalent. Intel somewhere along the line chose the wrong set of solutions to achieve their 10nm process. IMO these mistakes will not necessarily mean that some other node will be inherently disadvantaged other than the fact that they may now find themselves scrambling for tech lead. They will still have learned a lot from 10nm and hopefully should be able to feed that into future density improvements.
- Hiopl 6y ago
  This far along into the crisis, it feels to me like it's clear that any technical issues are incidental. It seems like there are such dire internal cultural/management issues that will make it impossible to fix the technical ones in any acceptable timeframe.
  - Firehawke 6y ago
    Absolutely this. The technical issues exist because management made really bad decisions without having any sort of a backup plan. Complicating it further, Intel made the same mistake over and over again-- they've been trying to get things back on track since roughly Sandy Bridge and have replaced their head designer every chip since that point when things didn't go well. Instead of fixing their design, they throw it out and start completely over. Again. and. Again. It would require a miracle at the top to fix their decision process.
0-_-0 6y ago
7 nm and 10 nm are quite different (7 nm relies more heavily on EUV IIRC), so the 10 nm delay doesn't have to affect 7 nm. However, 7nm is also facing significant delays.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

Guthur 6y ago

I am a very causal enthusiast but from my understanding there are many ways to skin a cat when it comes to process nodes hence with the company A 10nm vs company B 10nm are not equivalent. Intel somewhere along the line chose the wrong set of solutions to achieve their 10nm process. IMO these mistakes will not necessarily mean that some other node will be inherently disadvantaged other than the fact that they may now find themselves scrambling for tech lead. They will still have learned a lot from 10nm and hopefully should be able to feed that into future density improvements.

Hiopl 6y ago
This far along into the crisis, it feels to me like it's clear that any technical issues are incidental. It seems like there are such dire internal cultural/management issues that will make it impossible to fix the technical ones in any acceptable timeframe.
- Firehawke 6y ago
  Absolutely this. The technical issues exist because management made really bad decisions without having any sort of a backup plan. Complicating it further, Intel made the same mistake over and over again-- they've been trying to get things back on track since roughly Sandy Bridge and have replaced their head designer every chip since that point when things didn't go well. Instead of fixing their design, they throw it out and start completely over. Again. and. Again. It would require a miracle at the top to fix their decision process.

0-_-0 6y ago

7 nm and 10 nm are quite different (7 nm relies more heavily on EUV IIRC), so the 10 nm delay doesn't have to affect 7 nm. However, 7nm is also facing significant delays.