4 ms·

This seems so good (almost too good) that I wonder if they are being realistic. It seems like Intel has recently been missing all their projected timelines. C

by timmg 4y ago

This seems so good (almost too good) that I wonder if they are being realistic. It seems like Intel has recently been missing all their projected timelines. Considering they are talking about full-on manufacturing in about a year, they should be pretty far along. But I can't help being a little worried that it will happen.

VHRanger 4y ago
To be fair, they started missing all the timelines after Brian Krzanich succesfully executed his political coup as CEO of the company. It's hard to overstate how toxic he's been to the company.
- rjzzleep 4y ago
  Is there context to this claim? If so, can you share it?
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    The performance of Intel during the five years that he ran it is plenty of context, no? 2013 is a pretty clear inflection point for Intel and that was the year that he became CEO.
    - williamDafoe 4y ago
      I arrived at Google search in 2013 and soon they were complaining about how much Intel was "Slacking" and how badly they needed an alternate supplier for data center chips. I followed Chromebook and laptop iGPU 3D performance very carefully from 2013-2019. Did you know Intel made ZERO iGPU performance improvements in this time period? The 2013 IRIS Pro 5200 and Haswell (4000 series) were a major highpoint for FIVE years. The 5000 Through 8000 Intel core cpus were highly stagnant and forgettable! Mostly they were slacking off with new designs like the Ynnn "thermal throttlemaker" Such chips ran fast for 3 secs then quit - completely! From 2013-2019 their marketing pinheads sure had a field day making up new names for the same old shit iGPUs year after year after year! I have seen NO impact from Pat Gelsinger so far! Almost-competitive CPU's using 250% of the power of Ryzen 7000? Are you kidding us, Pat? Kryzanich laid off a huge number of CPU architects in 2014 so they could have a much bigger and of course - more important marketing department! Who needs these useless digital designers when all they can do is reduce the mips per watt? I mean who cares about that? And while we're at it why not staff the boardroom of the world's greatest physics company with community college marketing people? Because, why not? I don't see Apple returning to use the Intel i9-thighburner CPUs anytime soon!
      - jacquesm 4y ago
        What's interesting is if you put all of that next to the stock price. The disconnect is so weird.
        bfrog 4y ago
        Short term gains traded for long term losses is a pretty standard CEO playbook move. Make yours then bail with a golden parachute as the plane crashes.
        jacquesm 4y ago
        I think he was kicked out.
        bfrog 4y ago
        With no severance?
        jacquesm 4y ago
        That's a rhetorical question? I recall that he was entitled to double digit millions compensation if he resigned (which makes no sense to me so maybe I'm remembering this wrong). I'm sure there is an article somewhere on the web with all of the details and whether he actually got any of it or not but I would assume that he did. If only to make it easier for Intel to find its next CEO.
      - adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
        Gelsinger's only been there 2 years. You don't expect a major turn-around for roughly 5 (at the least) since it takes a pretty long time to go from research node to production.
      - dyingkneepad 4y ago
        > from 2013-2019. Did you know Intel made ZERO iGPU performance improvements in this time period? This is absolutely not true at all. Haswell was a major perf-per-watt improvement compared to previous Ivy Bridge. Broadwell and then Skylake both had significant improvements over their successors, not only in performance but also in power consumption and by adding necessary GPU tech to them. Then both Ice Lake and Tiger Lake had near 2x improvements in some industry standard benchmarks (e.g., Manhattan). The difference between Intel's 2019 and 2013 integrated GPUs is much bigger than the difference between their 2019 and 2013 processors.
  - BeetleB 4y ago
    Not sure what he's referring to, but during his tenure he decided to "shake things up" and laid people off almost-Elon-Musk-style. He basically had a target in terms of Dollars, and he asked HR to come up with metrics to hit the target. They laid off everyone who had had a bad review the prior year. But that wasn't enough to hit the target, so they laid off everyone who had an average performance review, but low bonuses. But that didn't hit the target, so they offered voluntary severance packages to those who had not had a promotion more than N years. That, along with encouraging early retirement let them hit the target. The layoffs happened all at once - not in phases. You had cases where a manager was suddenly told to inform his report that he is being laid off, only to then be told that the manager himself is being laid off. As you can imagine, any time someone does a blunt top down approach like this, you lose a lot of critical people with no one in the team knowledgeable to take over. No one saw it coming. Managers were not told in advance.
    - hinkley 4y ago
      You also lose a lot of fucks from people who know things but it isn't their job title either. After big cuts everyone is covering their asses.
    - n7pdx 4y ago
      As toxic as Brian Krazinich was, you can’t really blame one person for the problem at Intel. Yes, he and Murthy initiated the layoffs. But then the orders were executed by mid/senior management. They are the ones who have used reviews/promos/bonuses as political weapons for as long as I ever worked there (over a decade). It was natural that the 2016 layoffs at Intel eviscerated the technical contributors while keeping the politicians, ass-kissers and powerpointers in place. As far as I can tell Pat Gelsinger has not changed anything. The same hacks who ruined Intel are all still there, moving up the managerial ranks. Makes sense because Pat came from that culture… he practically defined it.
ac29 4y ago
> Considering they are talking about full-on manufacturing in about a year, they should be pretty far along When they say "manufacturing ready" in 2024, that doesnt mean you will be able to purchase anything built on those nodes next year. Intel 4 was manufacturing ready last year, but final chips being available isnt expected until the end of this year (and availability of final chips is usually months before you can buy, for example, a laptop with one in it).
- wmf 4y ago
  If these milestones aren't verifiable maybe we shouldn't be reporting and commenting on them.
  - ac29 4y ago
    Its of course not possible to know what will happen in the future, but the particular topic this article is about was announced by Intel during their Q322 earnings release: "Intel 20A, 18A: First test chips have taped out" Quote from page 5 of the Earnings Presentation here: https://www.intc.com/news-events/ir-calendar/detail/20221027-q3-2022-intel-corporation-earnings-conference-call https://www.intc.com/news-events/ir-calendar/detail/20221027...
klyrs 4y ago
Note that the product of "tape-out" is just data. That data is then used to produce masks, which are then used in photolithography to define features on a chip. Now, I could go off and tape out some test circuits for a 1pm process. That doesn't mean I'm making any progress towards bringing a 1pm fab node to reality.

by timmg 4y ago

VHRanger 4y ago

To be fair, they started missing all the timelines after Brian Krzanich succesfully executed his political coup as CEO of the company. It's hard to overstate how toxic he's been to the company.

rjzzleep 4y ago
Is there context to this claim? If so, can you share it?
- jacquesm 4y ago
  The performance of Intel during the five years that he ran it is plenty of context, no? 2013 is a pretty clear inflection point for Intel and that was the year that he became CEO.
  - williamDafoe 4y ago
    I arrived at Google search in 2013 and soon they were complaining about how much Intel was "Slacking" and how badly they needed an alternate supplier for data center chips. I followed Chromebook and laptop iGPU 3D performance very carefully from 2013-2019. Did you know Intel made ZERO iGPU performance improvements in this time period? The 2013 IRIS Pro 5200 and Haswell (4000 series) were a major highpoint for FIVE years. The 5000 Through 8000 Intel core cpus were highly stagnant and forgettable! Mostly they were slacking off with new designs like the Ynnn "thermal throttlemaker" Such chips ran fast for 3 secs then quit - completely! From 2013-2019 their marketing pinheads sure had a field day making up new names for the same old shit iGPUs year after year after year! I have seen NO impact from Pat Gelsinger so far! Almost-competitive CPU's using 250% of the power of Ryzen 7000? Are you kidding us, Pat? Kryzanich laid off a huge number of CPU architects in 2014 so they could have a much bigger and of course - more important marketing department! Who needs these useless digital designers when all they can do is reduce the mips per watt? I mean who cares about that? And while we're at it why not staff the boardroom of the world's greatest physics company with community college marketing people? Because, why not? I don't see Apple returning to use the Intel i9-thighburner CPUs anytime soon!
    - jacquesm 4y ago
      What's interesting is if you put all of that next to the stock price. The disconnect is so weird.
      - bfrog 4y ago
        Short term gains traded for long term losses is a pretty standard CEO playbook move. Make yours then bail with a golden parachute as the plane crashes.
        jacquesm 4y ago
        I think he was kicked out.
        bfrog 4y ago
        With no severance?
        jacquesm 4y ago
        That's a rhetorical question? I recall that he was entitled to double digit millions compensation if he resigned (which makes no sense to me so maybe I'm remembering this wrong). I'm sure there is an article somewhere on the web with all of the details and whether he actually got any of it or not but I would assume that he did. If only to make it easier for Intel to find its next CEO.
    - adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
      Gelsinger's only been there 2 years. You don't expect a major turn-around for roughly 5 (at the least) since it takes a pretty long time to go from research node to production.
    - dyingkneepad 4y ago
      > from 2013-2019. Did you know Intel made ZERO iGPU performance improvements in this time period? This is absolutely not true at all. Haswell was a major perf-per-watt improvement compared to previous Ivy Bridge. Broadwell and then Skylake both had significant improvements over their successors, not only in performance but also in power consumption and by adding necessary GPU tech to them. Then both Ice Lake and Tiger Lake had near 2x improvements in some industry standard benchmarks (e.g., Manhattan). The difference between Intel's 2019 and 2013 integrated GPUs is much bigger than the difference between their 2019 and 2013 processors.
- BeetleB 4y ago
  Not sure what he's referring to, but during his tenure he decided to "shake things up" and laid people off almost-Elon-Musk-style. He basically had a target in terms of Dollars, and he asked HR to come up with metrics to hit the target. They laid off everyone who had had a bad review the prior year. But that wasn't enough to hit the target, so they laid off everyone who had an average performance review, but low bonuses. But that didn't hit the target, so they offered voluntary severance packages to those who had not had a promotion more than N years. That, along with encouraging early retirement let them hit the target. The layoffs happened all at once - not in phases. You had cases where a manager was suddenly told to inform his report that he is being laid off, only to then be told that the manager himself is being laid off. As you can imagine, any time someone does a blunt top down approach like this, you lose a lot of critical people with no one in the team knowledgeable to take over. No one saw it coming. Managers were not told in advance.
  - hinkley 4y ago
    You also lose a lot of fucks from people who know things but it isn't their job title either. After big cuts everyone is covering their asses.
  - n7pdx 4y ago
    As toxic as Brian Krazinich was, you can’t really blame one person for the problem at Intel. Yes, he and Murthy initiated the layoffs. But then the orders were executed by mid/senior management. They are the ones who have used reviews/promos/bonuses as political weapons for as long as I ever worked there (over a decade). It was natural that the 2016 layoffs at Intel eviscerated the technical contributors while keeping the politicians, ass-kissers and powerpointers in place. As far as I can tell Pat Gelsinger has not changed anything. The same hacks who ruined Intel are all still there, moving up the managerial ranks. Makes sense because Pat came from that culture… he practically defined it.

ac29 4y ago

> Considering they are talking about full-on manufacturing in about a year, they should be pretty far along When they say "manufacturing ready" in 2024, that doesnt mean you will be able to purchase anything built on those nodes next year. Intel 4 was manufacturing ready last year, but final chips being available isnt expected until the end of this year (and availability of final chips is usually months before you can buy, for example, a laptop with one in it).

wmf 4y ago
If these milestones aren't verifiable maybe we shouldn't be reporting and commenting on them.
- ac29 4y ago
  Its of course not possible to know what will happen in the future, but the particular topic this article is about was announced by Intel during their Q322 earnings release: "Intel 20A, 18A: First test chips have taped out" Quote from page 5 of the Earnings Presentation here: https://www.intc.com/news-events/ir-calendar/detail/20221027-q3-2022-intel-corporation-earnings-conference-call https://www.intc.com/news-events/ir-calendar/detail/20221027...

klyrs 4y ago

Note that the product of "tape-out" is just data. That data is then used to produce masks, which are then used in photolithography to define features on a chip. Now, I could go off and tape out some test circuits for a 1pm process. That doesn't mean I'm making any progress towards bringing a 1pm fab node to reality.