4 ms·

In my view Intel is going the way of IBM. It has sat on its market dominance for years, innovated very little, and resorted to cheap tricks/smoke and mirrors wh

by cedws 2y ago

In my view Intel is going the way of IBM. It has sat on its market dominance for years, innovated very little, and resorted to cheap tricks/smoke and mirrors when they fell behind. Pat Gelsinger has had years to turn it around. The ship is either sinking too fast or he's not the right man for the job.

Arrath 2y ago
I wonder how seriously the 13th/14th generation defects are going to hurt them on top of these difficulties. Its bad timing all around.
- throwaway81523 2y ago
  I remember the FDIV bug...
rubiquity 2y ago
He’s been CEO for 3 years and some change. Turning around the Titanic takes a ton of effort. I think they’re doing better. Intel Core (edit: Core Ultra) and Raptor Lake are great platforms, better than their AMD equivalents (and that hurts to say as an AMD fan).
- nequo 2y ago
  What makes them better than AMD in your view?
  - nolok 2y ago
    Well the AMD one aren't as good at barbecuing food for one! (the "raptor lake" he quoted is actually the generation of Intel chip that is currently making the news for melting itself through insane power usage, only to barely keep up to AMD)
  - jauntywundrkind 2y ago
    AMD and Intel have flipped their approaches a bit. AMD has been working on the X2 chip to smartly integrate two cores, and Intel came along with Pentium-D which was basically just two Pentium dies next to each other. These days AMD has been playing that same tactic up in spades. Strix Point is a very very nice monolithic APU, but everywhere else they have an IO-Die and then a varying number of Core Complex Die. They're just dropping down variable numbers of cores. Intel by compare is building interesting bespoke chiplet configurations, is taking on X2 like challenges. And I believe in the eventual gains here. They have parcelled up responsibilities in a really interesting way with Meteor Lake, a CPU, and GPU, a SoC (with its own e-cores as well!), and a io chiplet. Intel's got tons of value add from this. Gobs of usb4 that AMD is nowhere near delivering, a massive image/video processor, the ability to easily drop in new cores or new gpu's as they increment. The modular design is ambitious and interesting. https://www.anandtech.com/show/20046/intel-unveils-meteor-lake-architecture-intel-4-heralds-the-disaggregated-future-of-mobile-cpus https://www.anandtech.com/show/20046/intel-unveils-meteor-la... And Intel seems well ahead in the packaging game. Rather than big interposer dies, Intel's using smaller sized & much finer EIMB bridges between chips. Which helps them save power as well as reducing size. They have Foveros for much more heterogenous chip stacking than what most are pulling off. Architecturally it feels like Intel's been very much refining & iterating across the multichip era for a long time, from the drastically underrated old Lakefield, to the very very highly integrated upcoming Lunar Lake. AMD is doing a great job making cores and gpu's, but Intel's been doing remarkably good, especially considering their 10nm+++ Intel 7 process, especially with the E-cores being a modest sized nicely performing core. I also want to complement Intel on their really interesting architecture innovations. But I have severe doubts that their various on-chip accelerators are going to reach critical adoption levels where the developers that matter are excited about spending time optimizing for these awesome luxuries. Like Ponte Vecchio, very interesting tech, and something the hyperscalers and supercomputer can be excited about, but it's hard to see a path towards long term success. I'd love to see Intel ship photonics-intergated solutions again. Their EIMB tech should complement that well, and that used to be a huge high value offering they had.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- mrkeen 2y ago
  > Intel Core and Raptor Lake are great platforms, better than their AMD equivalents "Intel Core"? "Raptor Lake" is the codename for the 13th and 14th generation processors, which are in the current news cycle for being buggy and Intel not recalling them.
  - rubiquity 2y ago
    Edited. I meant Intel "Core Ultra."
- chemmail 2y ago
  Not sure what they guy is huffing. I got lucky and went in on Alder Lake and was really close to getting a Raptor, but the half price for Alder swung me.
kredd 2y ago
The difference is, sentiment to IBM’s performance is much different from investor’s perspective. They’re almost at all time highs in terms of stock prices as well. My understanding is Intel has to compete with Chinese chip manufacturers as well now, and they don’t seem to be performing well. SMIC and others are catching up (or caught up?) at this point.
- etempleton 2y ago
  SMIC is still 5 years or more behind Intel, TSMC, and to a lesser extent, Samsung in terms of performance. With current geopolitics I doubt SMIC is going to takeover in the short term. Intel has 20a/18a shipping end of this year and early next year. The success of failure of those chips will be telling.
  - ffsm8 2y ago
    5 years ? They're 10 years behind on performance, and the chips have waaaay higher tdp then the old Intel/Nvidia/AMD CPUs/gpus had back then... So realistically, they're even more behind. Still an achievement though, they're at least making am attempt. That's more then can be said for I.e. Europe or India
Beijinger 2y ago
"innovated very little" They innovated a lot. Until 2022 or 23 they were the company that obtained the most patents every year.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- nateglims 2y ago
  Yeah, I believe they are a top R&D firm in terms of dollars as well. The story seems more like they have made a lot of missteps.
Workaccount2 2y ago
I think less than Gelsinger it's just that Intel is banking on it's foundry business for the future, and foundries are mind-blowingly expensive. Like nuclear reactor tier expensive and then double that. There is good reason the SOTA semi foundry market is basically TSMC, some Samsung, and a touch of intel. No one with big money wants to deal with foundries. Way more profitable to do pretty much anything else. On the flipside, the US gov wants domestic SOTA semi manufacturing, and it will not let intel disappear. Most reasonable americans should want this too, as pretty much everyone uses a TSMC chip everyday - often all day.
sys_64738 2y ago
I think Intel’s problem is they’re run by marketing who wring every dollar from the business.

by cedws 2y ago

Arrath 2y ago

I wonder how seriously the 13th/14th generation defects are going to hurt them on top of these difficulties. Its bad timing all around.

throwaway81523 2y ago
I remember the FDIV bug...

rubiquity 2y ago

He’s been CEO for 3 years and some change. Turning around the Titanic takes a ton of effort. I think they’re doing better. Intel Core (edit: Core Ultra) and Raptor Lake are great platforms, better than their AMD equivalents (and that hurts to say as an AMD fan).

nequo 2y ago
What makes them better than AMD in your view?
- nolok 2y ago
  Well the AMD one aren't as good at barbecuing food for one! (the "raptor lake" he quoted is actually the generation of Intel chip that is currently making the news for melting itself through insane power usage, only to barely keep up to AMD)
- jauntywundrkind 2y ago
  AMD and Intel have flipped their approaches a bit. AMD has been working on the X2 chip to smartly integrate two cores, and Intel came along with Pentium-D which was basically just two Pentium dies next to each other. These days AMD has been playing that same tactic up in spades. Strix Point is a very very nice monolithic APU, but everywhere else they have an IO-Die and then a varying number of Core Complex Die. They're just dropping down variable numbers of cores. Intel by compare is building interesting bespoke chiplet configurations, is taking on X2 like challenges. And I believe in the eventual gains here. They have parcelled up responsibilities in a really interesting way with Meteor Lake, a CPU, and GPU, a SoC (with its own e-cores as well!), and a io chiplet. Intel's got tons of value add from this. Gobs of usb4 that AMD is nowhere near delivering, a massive image/video processor, the ability to easily drop in new cores or new gpu's as they increment. The modular design is ambitious and interesting. https://www.anandtech.com/show/20046/intel-unveils-meteor-lake-architecture-intel-4-heralds-the-disaggregated-future-of-mobile-cpus https://www.anandtech.com/show/20046/intel-unveils-meteor-la... And Intel seems well ahead in the packaging game. Rather than big interposer dies, Intel's using smaller sized & much finer EIMB bridges between chips. Which helps them save power as well as reducing size. They have Foveros for much more heterogenous chip stacking than what most are pulling off. Architecturally it feels like Intel's been very much refining & iterating across the multichip era for a long time, from the drastically underrated old Lakefield, to the very very highly integrated upcoming Lunar Lake. AMD is doing a great job making cores and gpu's, but Intel's been doing remarkably good, especially considering their 10nm+++ Intel 7 process, especially with the E-cores being a modest sized nicely performing core. I also want to complement Intel on their really interesting architecture innovations. But I have severe doubts that their various on-chip accelerators are going to reach critical adoption levels where the developers that matter are excited about spending time optimizing for these awesome luxuries. Like Ponte Vecchio, very interesting tech, and something the hyperscalers and supercomputer can be excited about, but it's hard to see a path towards long term success. I'd love to see Intel ship photonics-intergated solutions again. Their EIMB tech should complement that well, and that used to be a huge high value offering they had.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
mrkeen 2y ago
> Intel Core and Raptor Lake are great platforms, better than their AMD equivalents "Intel Core"? "Raptor Lake" is the codename for the 13th and 14th generation processors, which are in the current news cycle for being buggy and Intel not recalling them.
- rubiquity 2y ago
  Edited. I meant Intel "Core Ultra."
chemmail 2y ago
Not sure what they guy is huffing. I got lucky and went in on Alder Lake and was really close to getting a Raptor, but the half price for Alder swung me.

kredd 2y ago

The difference is, sentiment to IBM’s performance is much different from investor’s perspective. They’re almost at all time highs in terms of stock prices as well. My understanding is Intel has to compete with Chinese chip manufacturers as well now, and they don’t seem to be performing well. SMIC and others are catching up (or caught up?) at this point.

etempleton 2y ago
SMIC is still 5 years or more behind Intel, TSMC, and to a lesser extent, Samsung in terms of performance. With current geopolitics I doubt SMIC is going to takeover in the short term. Intel has 20a/18a shipping end of this year and early next year. The success of failure of those chips will be telling.
- ffsm8 2y ago
  5 years ? They're 10 years behind on performance, and the chips have waaaay higher tdp then the old Intel/Nvidia/AMD CPUs/gpus had back then... So realistically, they're even more behind. Still an achievement though, they're at least making am attempt. That's more then can be said for I.e. Europe or India

Beijinger 2y ago

"innovated very little" They innovated a lot. Until 2022 or 23 they were the company that obtained the most patents every year.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
nateglims 2y ago
Yeah, I believe they are a top R&D firm in terms of dollars as well. The story seems more like they have made a lot of missteps.

Workaccount2 2y ago

I think less than Gelsinger it's just that Intel is banking on it's foundry business for the future, and foundries are mind-blowingly expensive. Like nuclear reactor tier expensive and then double that. There is good reason the SOTA semi foundry market is basically TSMC, some Samsung, and a touch of intel. No one with big money wants to deal with foundries. Way more profitable to do pretty much anything else. On the flipside, the US gov wants domestic SOTA semi manufacturing, and it will not let intel disappear. Most reasonable americans should want this too, as pretty much everyone uses a TSMC chip everyday - often all day.

sys_64738 2y ago

I think Intel’s problem is they’re run by marketing who wring every dollar from the business.