6 ms·

I'd be more interested in hearing about the terms of the Qualcomm deal. Is Qualcomm putting its eggs in the Intel basket for 2025 or has Intel reached an agreem

by mdasen 5y ago

I'd be more interested in hearing about the terms of the Qualcomm deal. Is Qualcomm putting its eggs in the Intel basket for 2025 or has Intel reached an agreement with Qualcomm that Qualcomm will buy from them if it fits Qualcomm's needs and it's ready in time? If the agreement is "Qualcomm will send some of its business Intel's way," that isn't a huge vote of confidence. Heck, are we talking about Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8xx series or just some Qualcomm chips like the ones they put in WiFi routers? Or their low-end Snapdragon 4xx series? The article is kinda spinning it as "Intel will be making the Qualcomm chips going into everyone's phones," but it could be more "Qualcomm is going to have Intel manufacture its low-end stuff which is always behind tech-wise and Intel is giving them a big discount because Intel needs a win." > In the chip world where smaller is better, Intel previously used names that alluded to the size of features in "nanometers". But over time the names used by chipmakers became arbitrary marking terms... This, he said, gave the mistaken impression that Intel was less competitive. They are definitely less competitive at this point. Nanometers might not be the right measurement, but one can measure transistor density. Maybe that would make more sense? Even if "Intel 7" (10nm Enhanced SuperFin) is equivalent to TSMC's 7nm, we saw TSMC's 7nm back in 2018. I have a TSMC 5nm in my pocket. I guess if Intel can keep to its road map, it will catch up. If "Intel 4" comes out with products in early 2023, it won't be far behind TSMC's 3nm process (which will likely debut in the 2022 iPhone). Of course, we'll have to see how well these Intel chips perform. We should be able to benchmark Intel 7 processors with Alder Lake processors landing later this year. Will these stand up well against AMD's 7nm Zen 2/3? Will they stand up against AMD's upcoming 5nm Zen 4? I guess we'll be able to test Intel's chips against what AMD has been shipping and see how well Intel 7 stands up against both 7nm and 5nm processes.

klelatti 5y ago
Wasn't Qualcomm announced as a 20A customer?
- discordance 5y ago
  For those who don’t know, that’s 20 angstroms (1 Å = 0.1 nm, or 10⁻¹⁰ m)
  - jjtheblunt 5y ago
    Pedantic but Ångström the Swede’s name -> Å, but US keyboard -> angstrom
stefan_ 5y ago
No one would make WiFi router chips or even low-end smartphone processors on these processes.
- kllrnohj 5y ago
  Not sure why you're being downvoted, you're absolutely correct. The low-end 400 series is a good 1-2 processes behind, being 11nm currently with the Snapdragon 480 5G (2021) on what looks to be Samsung's 8nm (aka, Samsung 10nm+), and the Qualcomm 215 (2019) is on 28nm even. Qualcomm isn't going to buy bleeding-edge foundry space for a low-end product, and definitely not for a wifi router which has almost no power or significant performance constraints.
  - sempron64 5y ago
    They never said which process the foundry services will provide, it's entirely possible they'll use the extremely mature 14nm++ process.
    - paulmd 5y ago
      the article did say it, Qualcomm will be using the Intel 20A process. here's a better article, but the Reuters article did include the point about Qualcomm using Intel 20A. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210726005136/en/ https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210726005136/en/
- jrockway 5y ago
  My (limited) understanding is that a lot of beamforming / MIMO techniques are limited by the power budget of the WiFi chips. So if you could use the fanciest processes, the WiFi chips could be better. I don't know if that's worth the price (everyone expects WiFi to suck 24/7), or if the process helps there, but it does sound like manufacturing technology, not math, is the limiting factor for WiFi right now.
  - stefan_ 5y ago
baybal2 5y ago
I'll tell you of a story of 5-6 years ago. There was a company called Allwinner Semiconductors. It was making super cookiecutter SoCs for tablets, and been aiming at the exploding "phablet" space. In the tablet space, it completely vanquished companies with many times the market cap, and marketing expense Qualcomm included. Qualcomm was really scared of them following them to the smartphone space, and going for their jugular. What they did: In around 2015-2016, they announce a "strategic deal" with Allwinner, with Allwinner distributing their low end SoCs on a borderline giveaway terms. Just few days later, their "phablet" offering disappears from their website. Few month later, their C-levels leave the company one after another, with some leaving for the fancy life in the US. I had contacts of some of their management people in my wechat account, and after 2016 their feeds were all cheese, and wine, cheese, and wine, and fancy dining, and parties. Nowadays, Allwinner is a shadow of its former self in its heydays, mostly dealing with most basic settop box SoCs. Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes
- girvo 5y ago
  I miss the days of weird phones and tablets with brand names I've never heard of with Allwinner SoCs in them. Such odd devices, so much fun to play with and explore. Rockchip based handheld gaming devices are about the closest to it nowadays.
  - jrockway 5y ago
    Doesn't the Pinephone, HN's favorite mobile device, use Allwinner SoCs?
    - blihp 5y ago
      Yes, but that's not what the poster is talking about. The Pinephone is a comparatively conventional/mundane handset design. It sounds like they were longing for more 'out there'/experimental designs that apparently were using A64 several years ago.
- MangoCoffee 5y ago
  how about MediaTek? is Qualcomm worry about MediaTek?
kayson 5y ago
Disclaimer: Qualcomm employee with no inside knowledge of the terms of the deal, opinions are my own. Generally fabless semiconductor companies use a variety of foundries and processes for their products. It largely depends on the technical requirements of the particular project as well as the cost of the node. In the early stages of a product development cycle, the team will choose a foundry/process and stick with it to the end. In rare cases the process will switch mid-stream, but this is costly because design essentially has to start over. (For digital, this would be after RTL is frozen; for analog/RF, a change at any point requires starting over) Sometimes, second sources are added after the first source is in production. These tend to be the lower cost fabs like SMIC or UMC, but they in turn design their processes to be drop in replacements for top fabs like TSMC and Samsung to make it easy to switch over. Given the above, and that Intel's process is not aimed at copying TSMC/SEC, I would guess that you'll slowly see a handful of non-critical products rolling out on "Intel 7". If the process turns out to be performant enough, you'll see more, even possibly higher end more critical product lines. Don't forget that Qualcomm isn't just about Snapdragon. There is a boatload of RF, Power Management, IoT and WiFi as well.
- x0x0 5y ago
  would you mind sharing a bit about what a process implies for the design? ie why does switching a process require massive design changes thank you
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - kayson 5y ago
    It doesn't necessarily require a massive design change. The problem is that nearly every aspect of two different processes is different, even when there is supposed to be an "easy" migration path, such as when the new process is just an optical shrink of another process. Specifically, the transistor properties are different, and so are the properties of the tiny metal wires connecting the transistors together. Once you get to the design phase where you're dealing with individual transistors (for analog this is right off the bat; for digital it's once you get to place & route), you spend thousands of hours simulating the behavior of the analog circuits, or the effects of the particular arrangement of digital logic gates, to make sure everything works. When the transistor and wire properties change, you at minimum have to repeat all of that verification Sometimes, the new process is different enough that an old design no longer works, and it takes a lot of engineering effort to fix it. Other times, a few small tweaks are enough. In some cases, particularly for digital-only ICs, the foundry will validate the migration between two processes, essentially saying, "we guarantee the IC you already designed will just work in this new process". Smaller companies might just go with it and accept any yield fallout, but bigger companies like Qualcomm would probably do their own independent verification.
DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
> but one can measure transistor density. Maybe that would make more sense Though by stacking 2D layers they can artificially balloon their density figures: 7nm is nominally ~95 million transistors per mm2 - but stack two of them and you can boast having 185MTr/mm2 I just found this: https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/bx9408/how_does_intels_10nm_have_a_higher_transistor/ https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/bx9408/how_does_i... - so yeah, numbers are meaningless
- d110af5ccf 5y ago
  Related: The node is nonsense (https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9150552 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9150552) Different number have different amounts of meaning. The technology is so incredibly complicated at this point that coming up with a single number that can be used for meaningful comparisons doesn't appear to be possible.
MangoCoffee 5y ago
for fabless company like Qualcomm/Nvidia. the cost of chip production is a factor. they needs to get the lowest cost that is possible. Apple on the other hand needs the latest tech to sell their product. Apple don't sell chip.
ezconnect 5y ago
The nanometer measurement was used to measure the whole transistor and when it was becoming harder to go smaller the nanometer measurement was changed to the smallest feature you can make on a silicon, so the competition is now who can make the best transistor.
hajile 5y ago
Intel 7nm should be equivalent to TSMC 5nm and should be launching some time soon (if not already). It didn't seem to bite off too much new stuff at one time like 10nm did, so I doubt it will see the same delays. Intel's fab woes are starting to lessen. I have little doubt that they'll wind up leading the pack again in the next couple years. I hope that this time around there are more companies that can use those advanced fabs.

by mdasen 5y ago

klelatti 5y ago

Wasn't Qualcomm announced as a 20A customer?

discordance 5y ago
For those who don’t know, that’s 20 angstroms (1 Å = 0.1 nm, or 10⁻¹⁰ m)
- jjtheblunt 5y ago
  Pedantic but Ångström the Swede’s name -> Å, but US keyboard -> angstrom

stefan_ 5y ago

No one would make WiFi router chips or even low-end smartphone processors on these processes.

kllrnohj 5y ago
Not sure why you're being downvoted, you're absolutely correct. The low-end 400 series is a good 1-2 processes behind, being 11nm currently with the Snapdragon 480 5G (2021) on what looks to be Samsung's 8nm (aka, Samsung 10nm+), and the Qualcomm 215 (2019) is on 28nm even. Qualcomm isn't going to buy bleeding-edge foundry space for a low-end product, and definitely not for a wifi router which has almost no power or significant performance constraints.
- sempron64 5y ago
  They never said which process the foundry services will provide, it's entirely possible they'll use the extremely mature 14nm++ process.
  - paulmd 5y ago
    the article did say it, Qualcomm will be using the Intel 20A process. here's a better article, but the Reuters article did include the point about Qualcomm using Intel 20A. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210726005136/en/ https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210726005136/en/
jrockway 5y ago
My (limited) understanding is that a lot of beamforming / MIMO techniques are limited by the power budget of the WiFi chips. So if you could use the fanciest processes, the WiFi chips could be better. I don't know if that's worth the price (everyone expects WiFi to suck 24/7), or if the process helps there, but it does sound like manufacturing technology, not math, is the limiting factor for WiFi right now.
- stefan_ 5y ago

baybal2 5y ago

I'll tell you of a story of 5-6 years ago. There was a company called Allwinner Semiconductors. It was making super cookiecutter SoCs for tablets, and been aiming at the exploding "phablet" space. In the tablet space, it completely vanquished companies with many times the market cap, and marketing expense Qualcomm included. Qualcomm was really scared of them following them to the smartphone space, and going for their jugular. What they did: In around 2015-2016, they announce a "strategic deal" with Allwinner, with Allwinner distributing their low end SoCs on a borderline giveaway terms. Just few days later, their "phablet" offering disappears from their website. Few month later, their C-levels leave the company one after another, with some leaving for the fancy life in the US. I had contacts of some of their management people in my wechat account, and after 2016 their feeds were all cheese, and wine, cheese, and wine, and fancy dining, and parties. Nowadays, Allwinner is a shadow of its former self in its heydays, mostly dealing with most basic settop box SoCs. Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes

girvo 5y ago
I miss the days of weird phones and tablets with brand names I've never heard of with Allwinner SoCs in them. Such odd devices, so much fun to play with and explore. Rockchip based handheld gaming devices are about the closest to it nowadays.
- jrockway 5y ago
  Doesn't the Pinephone, HN's favorite mobile device, use Allwinner SoCs?
  - blihp 5y ago
    Yes, but that's not what the poster is talking about. The Pinephone is a comparatively conventional/mundane handset design. It sounds like they were longing for more 'out there'/experimental designs that apparently were using A64 several years ago.
MangoCoffee 5y ago
how about MediaTek? is Qualcomm worry about MediaTek?

kayson 5y ago

Disclaimer: Qualcomm employee with no inside knowledge of the terms of the deal, opinions are my own. Generally fabless semiconductor companies use a variety of foundries and processes for their products. It largely depends on the technical requirements of the particular project as well as the cost of the node. In the early stages of a product development cycle, the team will choose a foundry/process and stick with it to the end. In rare cases the process will switch mid-stream, but this is costly because design essentially has to start over. (For digital, this would be after RTL is frozen; for analog/RF, a change at any point requires starting over) Sometimes, second sources are added after the first source is in production. These tend to be the lower cost fabs like SMIC or UMC, but they in turn design their processes to be drop in replacements for top fabs like TSMC and Samsung to make it easy to switch over. Given the above, and that Intel's process is not aimed at copying TSMC/SEC, I would guess that you'll slowly see a handful of non-critical products rolling out on "Intel 7". If the process turns out to be performant enough, you'll see more, even possibly higher end more critical product lines. Don't forget that Qualcomm isn't just about Snapdragon. There is a boatload of RF, Power Management, IoT and WiFi as well.

x0x0 5y ago
would you mind sharing a bit about what a process implies for the design? ie why does switching a process require massive design changes thank you
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- kayson 5y ago
  It doesn't necessarily require a massive design change. The problem is that nearly every aspect of two different processes is different, even when there is supposed to be an "easy" migration path, such as when the new process is just an optical shrink of another process. Specifically, the transistor properties are different, and so are the properties of the tiny metal wires connecting the transistors together. Once you get to the design phase where you're dealing with individual transistors (for analog this is right off the bat; for digital it's once you get to place & route), you spend thousands of hours simulating the behavior of the analog circuits, or the effects of the particular arrangement of digital logic gates, to make sure everything works. When the transistor and wire properties change, you at minimum have to repeat all of that verification Sometimes, the new process is different enough that an old design no longer works, and it takes a lot of engineering effort to fix it. Other times, a few small tweaks are enough. In some cases, particularly for digital-only ICs, the foundry will validate the migration between two processes, essentially saying, "we guarantee the IC you already designed will just work in this new process". Smaller companies might just go with it and accept any yield fallout, but bigger companies like Qualcomm would probably do their own independent verification.

DaiPlusPlus 5y ago

> but one can measure transistor density. Maybe that would make more sense Though by stacking 2D layers they can artificially balloon their density figures: 7nm is nominally ~95 million transistors per mm2 - but stack two of them and you can boast having 185MTr/mm2 I just found this: https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/bx9408/how_does_intels_10nm_have_a_higher_transistor/ https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/bx9408/how_does_i... - so yeah, numbers are meaningless

d110af5ccf 5y ago
Related: The node is nonsense (https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9150552 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9150552) Different number have different amounts of meaning. The technology is so incredibly complicated at this point that coming up with a single number that can be used for meaningful comparisons doesn't appear to be possible.

MangoCoffee 5y ago

for fabless company like Qualcomm/Nvidia. the cost of chip production is a factor. they needs to get the lowest cost that is possible. Apple on the other hand needs the latest tech to sell their product. Apple don't sell chip.

ezconnect 5y ago

The nanometer measurement was used to measure the whole transistor and when it was becoming harder to go smaller the nanometer measurement was changed to the smallest feature you can make on a silicon, so the competition is now who can make the best transistor.

hajile 5y ago

Intel 7nm should be equivalent to TSMC 5nm and should be launching some time soon (if not already). It didn't seem to bite off too much new stuff at one time like 10nm did, so I doubt it will see the same delays. Intel's fab woes are starting to lessen. I have little doubt that they'll wind up leading the pack again in the next couple years. I hope that this time around there are more companies that can use those advanced fabs.