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This is half- to full- snark: When they outsource to TSMC. At some point Intel will get their act together and only be one step behind rather than... christ, a
by AtlasBarfed 6y ago
This is half- to full- snark: When they outsource to TSMC.
At some point Intel will get their act together and only be one step behind rather than... christ, are they three steps behind? They just have way too much money.
But it does look like with the management purges, re-hires of old guard, and other changes it'll be a while before they right ship.
There's probably pride to overcome, since a lot of process choices probably are "stake my career" things and now those careers may be coming to an end.
The interesting thing may be that Intel now not only must close a gap in process technology, they may also need to change instruction set and make an ARM offering.
- toast0 6y ago> At some point Intel will get their act together and only be one step behind rather than... christ, are they three steps behind? They're not really three steps behind. At some point, node measurements became more useless as Intel and TSMC differ on what part of the thing they're measuring. Intel's 14 nm is roughly the same as TSMCs 10, and i10 ~= t7, i7 ~= t5. TSMC is shipping their 5nm chips, and intel is halfway shipping their 10nm chips, so that's somewhere between 1.5 and 2 steps behind.
- AtlasBarfed 6y agoAgreed on the process measurements, and so you're technically (the best kind!) right, and I remember the days when Intel was on "nm" parity with other fabs and their stuff was better at TDP and other things. But then... With the code of processes and half-nodes / node+ tiers which easily cost as much as full node shrinks before, well, financially it may be three steps. Plus the fact you don't chase what's in the marketplace if you're behind, you have to chase where the ball is rolling to.