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I’d argue that focus is what Intel fundamentally lacks. Or any kind of real vision. If they had focused more on mobile CPUs, GPUs, or especially GPGPUs a decad
by brokencode 2y ago
I’d argue that focus is what Intel fundamentally lacks. Or any kind of real vision.
If they had focused more on mobile CPUs, GPUs, or especially GPGPUs a decade ago, they could have more product diversity now to hold them over.
Instead, they dipped their toes into a new market every few years and then ran away screaming when they realized how difficult and it would be to gain market share.
If they had any actual vision, they could have a line of ARM CPUs now to compete with the onslaught in all major CPU markets.
They should have listened to their customers and market forces instead of trying to force x86 down everyone’s throats.
- Cumpiler69 2y ago>they could have a line of ARM CPUs now to compete with the onslaught in all major CPU markets. Disagree. Selling ARM chips with high profit margins is tough. There's too much competition from the likes of Samsung, MediaTek and until the US ban, Hi Silicon(Huawei). ARM chips are a race to the bottom in terms of price with a market dominated by companies from Asia. There's no guarantee Intel could have had a competitive ARM design that could beat Apple's or Qualcom's.
- everfrustrated 2y agoIntel did have an ARM license at one point. The margins would have never been acceptable to Intel. Annapurna Labs / P. A Semi probably sold to Amazon / Apple respectively for the same reason.
- bhouston 2y ago> There's too much competition from the likes of Samsung, MediaTek and until the US ban, Hi Silicon(Huawei). ARM chips are a race to the bottom in terms of price with a market dominated by companies from Asia Yes, without proprietary technology, margins are slim. But Qualcomm has somewhat succeeded in this area anyhow. I guess they took the ARM base but innovated on top of it in order to command higher margins.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Cumpiler69 2y ago>But Qualcomm has somewhat succeeded in this area anyhow It's wasn't just anyhow. Qualcomm succeed in the mobile SoC space because they also had the best modems in the industry (name comes form Quality Communications after all). And also the best mobile GPU IP they bought from ATI.
- kasabali 2y agoYou forgot also the best lawyers in the industry
- brokencode 2y agoWell they have to try something and actually invest in it. Every year, it looks more and more like x86 is a sinking ship. Intel and AMD can dominate the x86 market all they want. But x86 has been steadily losing ground every year to cheaper and more power efficient ARM processors. It’s still a big market now, but I don’t think it’s going to be a great business in a decade or two. ARM was just an example. If Intel spent a decade strengthening their Larrabee GPGPU platform and building AI and crypto ecosystems on it, they may have been well positioned to benefit immensely like Nvidia has over the last 5 years.
- astrange 2y agoCheap and power efficient is mostly not about the ISA. ARMv8 is designed for efficient fast CPUs and it's good at it, but you could do it with x86 if you tried. Intel doesn't try because they want to make expensive high-power server chips. Although their latest plan is to turn it into ARMv8 anyway: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/articles/technical/advanced-performance-extensions-apx.html https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/articles/t... The main problem with x86 is that it has poor security, not poor performance.