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And this is why AMD and Apple are eating their lunch now. I'm super happy Intel is going to build a next gen fab though, mostly because I'm concerned about the

by gleenn 5y ago

And this is why AMD and Apple are eating their lunch now. I'm super happy Intel is going to build a next gen fab though, mostly because I'm concerned about the imminent threat of China taking over Taiwan and TSMC with it.

KSS42 5y ago
AMD announced $8B buy back recently ... <sigh>
- drexlspivey 5y ago
  There has been too much dilution with the Xilinx acquisition which was an all-stock deal (they didn’t pay anything)
- ip26 5y ago
  Its stock is also down >30% relative to a few months back. Maybe it was just a chance to whittle down dilution at a discount.
smoldesu 5y ago
Frankly, I don't think it's as close as people make it out to be. AMD has done some incredible stuff (particularly with their mobile APUs), but Intel is on track to have them beaten to the punch at every point on their roadmap. We're still half a decade off from BIG.little Ryzen CPUs, which really scares me considering how much mileage Apple and Intel has gotten out of it already. Apple, on the other hand, has put up a bit of a fight. They bought out the entire 5nm node from under the rest of the industry, for better and worse, and then they changed the game again by putting the ball in their court (mobile chipsets). At this point it's hard to even say they're competing against AMD and Intel; the two are chasing entirely different markets at this point. When they do butt heads though, watching the sparks fly has been spectacular. Despite being on decidedly worse silicon and a veritably slower ISA, Intel has managed to refute every one of Apple's offerings with a decidedly cheaper processor. I really do look forward to their response to the M1 Ultra, because I feel like the chip wars have only just begun. With Pat Gelsinger at the helm, Intel has set a warpath through the industry, and their recent performance metrics seem to cement their intent on being the best in the biz again. Godspeed to all you chip manufacturers out there.
- philistine 5y ago
  I'm curious: are you at all concerned that Intel cannot deliver performance comparable to Apple with a reasonable wattage? If you consider battery drain at all, Intel is no contest.
  - enragedcacti 5y ago
    A partial explanation for this is that Apple A* cores by volume overwhelmingly go into extremely battery constrained devices whereas for Intel its a plurality of their volume at most (and even then laptop use cases are less battery constrained than phones or tablets). Further, until very recently Intel had no reason to optimize for laptops because AMD was a non-factor and ARM based machines were only barely a thing. Core design is astronomically expensive so given the opportunity to build only one core (or two in the case of big.little) it seems reasonable that Apple's perf/W would be superior since they have had a very pressing business need for it. Add on that they have so far been built on one to two nodes ahead. The point being, I think if Intel still can't get close to Apple in 2-3 years then there is a bigger problem, but as of now I think there are still some reasonable explanations as to why their current products are behind that don't come down to technical inability.
Frost1x 5y ago
>mostly because I'm concerned about the imminent threat of China taking over Taiwan and TSMC with it. Isn't TSMC building infrastructure out in Arizona? It might not be full featured but it creates a launch point for protecting a world wide asset. https://tsmccareers.com/tsmc-arizona/ https://tsmccareers.com/tsmc-arizona/
twoodfin 5y ago
Relative to publicly accounted R&D costs, Apple has spent vastly more on buybacks than Intel recently. Why aren’t they victims of “financialization”?
- SturgeonsLaw 5y ago
  When they reach a stage where they're no longer releasing hit products, watch this space
- plorkyeran 5y ago
  Apple under Cook has done all the cost-optimization things you would expect a COO-turned-CEO to do, but thus far it doesn't seem to have hurt their ability to continue to innovate and produce new high-quality products. A possible answer is that Tim Cook is simply much better at it than most CEOs, and understand where he can get away with a focus on cutting costs and where he can't. It may also be that they've just gotten lucky, or that Apple just had _that much_ momentum that a decade isn't long enough to start seeing problems.
  - oblio 5y ago
    The iPhone is one of those breakthrough devices that every person needs and probably needs to have on them at all times and they've converted that ubiquity into many adjacent markets. At this point the only way out for us, from both iOS and Android, is if they both miss the next big form factor, maybe smart glasses and AR/VR. Basically, the next OS.
  - allie1 5y ago
    I am of the opinion it hasn't affected them YET. Just a lowly developer waiting for his MBP for over 11 weeks now, waiting for Intel's mobile Alder Lake to roll out so I can cancel my order and pick one up.
- ksec 5y ago
  It is not buyback is inherently evil or wrong. Surely we could all agree if your stock is trading at P/E 1 with no debt it would even make sense to take it private right? It is using cash as buy back while not giving enough budget to R&D or product improvements. Apple didn't do that. They invested accordingly and still had too much money and didn't know what to do with it. Although one could argue they could invest and bring even more value to their customers. But Tim Cook think those were better for shareholders. Compared to Intel, they stopped investing in foundries. Partly because of their 14nm were over provisioned and partly because of their broad. Along with their 10nm failures. It really was a perfect storm.
onepointsixC 5y ago
A year ago yes, but today Intel's Alder Lake CPU's are excellent, trading blow for blow against AMD's and Apple's latest and in many benchmarks outright beating its competition. The only serious draw back is the power consumption - but considering that they are on a worse node process that's not too surprising. Give Patrick Gelsinger a few years at the helm and we'll see if their plan to recapture fab leadership succeeds or not.

by gleenn 5y ago

KSS42 5y ago

AMD announced $8B buy back recently ... <sigh>

drexlspivey 5y ago
There has been too much dilution with the Xilinx acquisition which was an all-stock deal (they didn’t pay anything)
ip26 5y ago
Its stock is also down >30% relative to a few months back. Maybe it was just a chance to whittle down dilution at a discount.

smoldesu 5y ago

Frankly, I don't think it's as close as people make it out to be. AMD has done some incredible stuff (particularly with their mobile APUs), but Intel is on track to have them beaten to the punch at every point on their roadmap. We're still half a decade off from BIG.little Ryzen CPUs, which really scares me considering how much mileage Apple and Intel has gotten out of it already. Apple, on the other hand, has put up a bit of a fight. They bought out the entire 5nm node from under the rest of the industry, for better and worse, and then they changed the game again by putting the ball in their court (mobile chipsets). At this point it's hard to even say they're competing against AMD and Intel; the two are chasing entirely different markets at this point. When they do butt heads though, watching the sparks fly has been spectacular. Despite being on decidedly worse silicon and a veritably slower ISA, Intel has managed to refute every one of Apple's offerings with a decidedly cheaper processor. I really do look forward to their response to the M1 Ultra, because I feel like the chip wars have only just begun. With Pat Gelsinger at the helm, Intel has set a warpath through the industry, and their recent performance metrics seem to cement their intent on being the best in the biz again. Godspeed to all you chip manufacturers out there.

philistine 5y ago
I'm curious: are you at all concerned that Intel cannot deliver performance comparable to Apple with a reasonable wattage? If you consider battery drain at all, Intel is no contest.
- enragedcacti 5y ago
  A partial explanation for this is that Apple A* cores by volume overwhelmingly go into extremely battery constrained devices whereas for Intel its a plurality of their volume at most (and even then laptop use cases are less battery constrained than phones or tablets). Further, until very recently Intel had no reason to optimize for laptops because AMD was a non-factor and ARM based machines were only barely a thing. Core design is astronomically expensive so given the opportunity to build only one core (or two in the case of big.little) it seems reasonable that Apple's perf/W would be superior since they have had a very pressing business need for it. Add on that they have so far been built on one to two nodes ahead. The point being, I think if Intel still can't get close to Apple in 2-3 years then there is a bigger problem, but as of now I think there are still some reasonable explanations as to why their current products are behind that don't come down to technical inability.

Frost1x 5y ago

>mostly because I'm concerned about the imminent threat of China taking over Taiwan and TSMC with it. Isn't TSMC building infrastructure out in Arizona? It might not be full featured but it creates a launch point for protecting a world wide asset. https://tsmccareers.com/tsmc-arizona/ https://tsmccareers.com/tsmc-arizona/

twoodfin 5y ago

Relative to publicly accounted R&D costs, Apple has spent vastly more on buybacks than Intel recently. Why aren’t they victims of “financialization”?

SturgeonsLaw 5y ago
When they reach a stage where they're no longer releasing hit products, watch this space
plorkyeran 5y ago
Apple under Cook has done all the cost-optimization things you would expect a COO-turned-CEO to do, but thus far it doesn't seem to have hurt their ability to continue to innovate and produce new high-quality products. A possible answer is that Tim Cook is simply much better at it than most CEOs, and understand where he can get away with a focus on cutting costs and where he can't. It may also be that they've just gotten lucky, or that Apple just had _that much_ momentum that a decade isn't long enough to start seeing problems.
- oblio 5y ago
  The iPhone is one of those breakthrough devices that every person needs and probably needs to have on them at all times and they've converted that ubiquity into many adjacent markets. At this point the only way out for us, from both iOS and Android, is if they both miss the next big form factor, maybe smart glasses and AR/VR. Basically, the next OS.
- allie1 5y ago
  I am of the opinion it hasn't affected them YET. Just a lowly developer waiting for his MBP for over 11 weeks now, waiting for Intel's mobile Alder Lake to roll out so I can cancel my order and pick one up.
ksec 5y ago
It is not buyback is inherently evil or wrong. Surely we could all agree if your stock is trading at P/E 1 with no debt it would even make sense to take it private right? It is using cash as buy back while not giving enough budget to R&D or product improvements. Apple didn't do that. They invested accordingly and still had too much money and didn't know what to do with it. Although one could argue they could invest and bring even more value to their customers. But Tim Cook think those were better for shareholders. Compared to Intel, they stopped investing in foundries. Partly because of their 14nm were over provisioned and partly because of their broad. Along with their 10nm failures. It really was a perfect storm.

onepointsixC 5y ago

A year ago yes, but today Intel's Alder Lake CPU's are excellent, trading blow for blow against AMD's and Apple's latest and in many benchmarks outright beating its competition. The only serious draw back is the power consumption - but considering that they are on a worse node process that's not too surprising. Give Patrick Gelsinger a few years at the helm and we'll see if their plan to recapture fab leadership succeeds or not.