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Kind of disagree. Have read on forums that by all accounts, the tech in the 18A process is amazing (Gate-all-around transistors, backside power-delivery, 3d pac
by computerdork 2y ago
Kind of disagree. Have read on forums that by all accounts, the tech in the 18A process is amazing (Gate-all-around transistors, backside power-delivery, 3d packaging tech...), and that they are on the path to catchup/pass TSMC in terms of chip-fabrication performance/power-expenditure in a year or two. Yeah, this is an amazing achievement for such a large company.
But have also ready that to make this profitable is like a 5-8 year plan, not something that is profitable in 3. To me, this is his biggest mistake, he needed to keep the ship sailing at least somewhat smoothly while waiting for this big gamble to pay off.
And eventhough I do agree with you that he made a lot of mistakes, still he got the the most important issue right, regaining manufacturing leadership.
- newswasboring 2y agoI would love to see a source for you first paragraph.
- computerdork 2y agoThis forum is full of engineers and they talk about 18A (I myself am only a software engineer but who took hardware design classes waay back in college, so can understand 60% what they're are saying but am no expert). https://semiwiki.com/forum/index.php?threads/intel-18a-too-good-but-design-lags.21568 https://semiwiki.com/forum/index.php?threads/intel-18a-too-g... And obviously, many of these posters are like me and have a bias towards Intel succeeding. Still, it sounds like 18A seems like it's on track in terms of the technologies (at least for now)
- aurareturn 2y agoEven if 18A can catch TSMC, which I highly doubt, what does it matter if they don’t have any of the big chip designers like Apple and Nvidia?
- throwaway48476 2y agoDepends how similar the PDK is.
- philistine 2y agoThat's the only thing? We're talking Apple here. If you can't provide tens of millions of chips per quarter, you're useless to them. TSMC not only has the best fabs, the chips fly out of those fabs at blinding speed.
- throwaway48476 2y agoThere are more custers besides apple. Intel is not a small manufacturer.
- philistine 2y agoNo they are not, but one big part of their problem they have in their attempts to catch up to TSMC is that they can't get reliable yields above 30%, while TSMC has a better node AND they have 60% yields.
- computerdork 2y agoYeah, that is why some outsiders say this is more like an 8 year strategy, it takes time to convert customers. IMHO, if you have a great product and a market with significant demand, seems like eventually the customers will come - and it seems like this is possible if Intel can retain manufacturing leadership for a few years and build out a better ecosystem to support external chip development by foundry customers, but this of course take time.