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I thought one of the major advantages Intel held was that it owned its own manufacturing, allowing it to iterate more quickly. However, this article seems to c
by sbov 14y ago
I thought one of the major advantages Intel held was that it owned its own manufacturing, allowing it to iterate more quickly. However, this article seems to claim it needs to shed itself of that. Is it not really an advantage in x86 then? If it is an advantage in x86, why isn't it here? Or is this just a case of blindly copying ARM's business model?
- marshray 14y agoThinking purely objectively, it's always an advantage to have the most money in the bank, the largest customer installed base. Owning the best semiconductor foundaries is a big advantage for the forseeable future. But so once was also owning the world's largest battleship. Things change. How often do the most disruptive changes come from or favor those with the largest physical plant?
- yxhuvud 14y agoI think it depends on how it is structured. Owning your own manufacturing is likely more easy to iterate than hiring other to other companies to manufacture for you. What ARM is doing is the opposite - they are the ones hired by the foundries to provide an architecture, and then it is up to the foundries to make the architecture run. This largely decouples the architecture design from manufacturing constraints giving them free reign to innovate. If a foundry can't cope, then that will not hurt the bottom line for ARM since other foundries can, whereas if you own the manufacturing, you actually have to pay to avoid obsoleteness.