5 ms·

The thing that's truly amazing to me is that they're pumping out a 662mm^2 (about 2.6cm square) chip on their leading-edge production process, and selling the f

by jwise0 12y ago

The thing that's truly amazing to me is that they're pumping out a 662mm^2 (about 2.6cm square) chip on their leading-edge production process, and selling the full-SKU for "only" $4,000. By comparison, the very first Ivy Bridge parts were about 160mm^2 and were sold into a consumer (i.e., lower-margin, more cost-sensitive) space for about $330; scaling defects quadratically (though this is just a gross estimation), you'd predict this part (if in a /consumer/ space) to go for around $5650. Add in the small volume cost of having to sell this thing into the server market, the price point they're putting their 'reticle buster' at is astounding. They must have really tuned their 22nm process as it's matured... the rest of the industry would kill for that kind of process :-)

ChuckMcM 12y ago
I read that and wondered something similar. One can argue either there was a lot of 'air' in the Intel pricing and some competition had deflated it, or they are getting pretty astonishing yields on their 22nm process. Probably a bit of both but still an interesting price point.
- higherpurpose 12y ago
  Oh, Intel definitely has huge margins on its chips, especially the higher-end ones (the higher, the bigger the margin). Intel could use quite a bit more "deflating" there. Even in laptops, which are quite mainstream and getting rapidly commoditized right now (mostly due to some "indirect" competition from ARM devices), Intel's chips are the highest margin component (perhaps with the exception of SSDs, but they probably beat that, too), and Intel's chips can represent up to 40 percent of a laptop's BOM, compared to 10-15 percent for ARM chips in mobile devices. If you have been wondering why laptops have gotten such terrible displays (or other components) for so long, this is the reason. OEMs have no room for anything else when the processor is 40 percent of their cost.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > If you have been wondering why laptops have gotten such terrible displays (or other components) for so long, this is the reason. OEMs have no room for anything else when the processor is 40 percent of their cost. The more expensive the processor is, the less (proportional to the total cost) impact a more expensive non-processor part has on the final cost, so I don't think that's the explanation.
    - markbnj 12y ago
      I'm not sure it works that way. If they have a selling price target of x, and the processor costs y, then they have x-y left to spend on other stuff.
    - nl 12y ago
      They build to spec, at price points. i5 + 8 GB + SSD for $x. If it isn't on the list of things people look for then manufactures try to save money on it.
      - ansgri 12y ago
        That's quite a win of the deceptive marketing. Since 2006 I don't pay attention to the CPU (apart from ISA extensions present, but I do SIMD development), the important components of a laptop being display, battery and keyboard. And SSD, as of latest.
        meddlepal 12y ago
        It depends on user usage patterns. CPU (to some degree), RAM, SSD and Video card are all high priority items for me. Screen I don't care much about because I prefer to dock and use two monitors... the screen only becomes a factor when I need to be mobile which is usually short bursts of time.
      - dragonwriter 12y ago
        > If it isn't on the list of things people look for then manufactures try to save money on it. So, if I accept that, then the reason laptops have what was upthread called "such terrible displays" isn't that Intel processors are too expensive, its that better displays aren't on the list of things that (manufacturers think) most of the market is looking for.
  - zurn 12y ago
    There's a lot of choice in the lower end of x86 for laptops -Celerons, Atoms, AMD APUs. Something else is going on.
higherpurpose 12y ago
Leading edge production process? 22nm is 2 years old and on its way out. 14nm is the leading edge right now from Intel. Also the rest of the industry is moving to 20nm this fall. In fact, Apple's new A8 is likely built on 20nm from both Samsung and TSMC.
- rbanffy 12y ago
  Intel is traditionally conservative on their server chips. I am not surprised by the 22 nm process.
  - szatkus 12y ago
    Because server parts requires high quality of process. 14nm isn't ready for this. They've just managed to produce small (around 80mm^2), lower-clocked Core M. Desktop parts are planned for next year.
reitzensteinm 12y ago
Their ability to sell parts with defective cores fused off makes this analysis really quite complicated. Ad absurdum, say only 1% the 18 core dies have no defects and can be sold as such. In a vacuum, the chip would have be priced very high to cover the costs of low yields. But since they can sell the defects at 8 cores for $1000 and 12 cores for $2000, they can be profitable on the reject chips alone. The 18 cores that work are a bonus. They're no doubt priced at what Intel thinks the market will bare, meaning that either the process is great (so they're priced low to sell a ton), or that there's just not that much demand for the most high end product. Or some combination of the two.
- wmf 12y ago
  The same logic is really obvious in GPUs, where you can get a 90%-good 600 sq. mm. chip for $500.
- masklinn 12y ago
  I'm not sure how it works out for these chips, but I remember stories a few years ago where the fabs were so high quality they didn't have enough defective chips to put in the lower bin, and had to bin "perfect" chips to reach target volumes.
  - donavanm 12y ago
    The first few spins of AMD Athlons circa 1999/2000 were exceptional in this regard. Parts actually binned at 700mhz were downclocked and sold in 500mhz packages. I dont recall anything similar with Intel recently, maybe some if the core2 stuff.
Andys 12y ago
22nm isn't their leading edge process any more, 14nm is. 22nm has been out for several years now. Intel can get good economies of scale by using their big 450mm wafers (other fabs use 300mm) The transistor count IS very high, but there are others in the server space (eg. latest Oracle Sparc) that are even higher.
- reitzensteinm 12y ago
  Intel does not yet use 450mm wafers for any shipping products, that's quite a while away. http://blog.timesunion.com/business/intel-says-450mm-will-deploy-later-in-decade/59430/ http://blog.timesunion.com/business/intel-says-450mm-will-de...
  - Andys 12y ago
    Thanks! I completely missed that important fact :)

by jwise0 12y ago

ChuckMcM 12y ago

I read that and wondered something similar. One can argue either there was a lot of 'air' in the Intel pricing and some competition had deflated it, or they are getting pretty astonishing yields on their 22nm process. Probably a bit of both but still an interesting price point.

higherpurpose 12y ago
Oh, Intel definitely has huge margins on its chips, especially the higher-end ones (the higher, the bigger the margin). Intel could use quite a bit more "deflating" there. Even in laptops, which are quite mainstream and getting rapidly commoditized right now (mostly due to some "indirect" competition from ARM devices), Intel's chips are the highest margin component (perhaps with the exception of SSDs, but they probably beat that, too), and Intel's chips can represent up to 40 percent of a laptop's BOM, compared to 10-15 percent for ARM chips in mobile devices. If you have been wondering why laptops have gotten such terrible displays (or other components) for so long, this is the reason. OEMs have no room for anything else when the processor is 40 percent of their cost.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > If you have been wondering why laptops have gotten such terrible displays (or other components) for so long, this is the reason. OEMs have no room for anything else when the processor is 40 percent of their cost. The more expensive the processor is, the less (proportional to the total cost) impact a more expensive non-processor part has on the final cost, so I don't think that's the explanation.
  - markbnj 12y ago
    I'm not sure it works that way. If they have a selling price target of x, and the processor costs y, then they have x-y left to spend on other stuff.
  - nl 12y ago
    They build to spec, at price points. i5 + 8 GB + SSD for $x. If it isn't on the list of things people look for then manufactures try to save money on it.
    - ansgri 12y ago
      That's quite a win of the deceptive marketing. Since 2006 I don't pay attention to the CPU (apart from ISA extensions present, but I do SIMD development), the important components of a laptop being display, battery and keyboard. And SSD, as of latest.
      - meddlepal 12y ago
        It depends on user usage patterns. CPU (to some degree), RAM, SSD and Video card are all high priority items for me. Screen I don't care much about because I prefer to dock and use two monitors... the screen only becomes a factor when I need to be mobile which is usually short bursts of time.
    - dragonwriter 12y ago
      > If it isn't on the list of things people look for then manufactures try to save money on it. So, if I accept that, then the reason laptops have what was upthread called "such terrible displays" isn't that Intel processors are too expensive, its that better displays aren't on the list of things that (manufacturers think) most of the market is looking for.
- zurn 12y ago
  There's a lot of choice in the lower end of x86 for laptops -Celerons, Atoms, AMD APUs. Something else is going on.

higherpurpose 12y ago

Leading edge production process? 22nm is 2 years old and on its way out. 14nm is the leading edge right now from Intel. Also the rest of the industry is moving to 20nm this fall. In fact, Apple's new A8 is likely built on 20nm from both Samsung and TSMC.

rbanffy 12y ago
Intel is traditionally conservative on their server chips. I am not surprised by the 22 nm process.
- szatkus 12y ago
  Because server parts requires high quality of process. 14nm isn't ready for this. They've just managed to produce small (around 80mm^2), lower-clocked Core M. Desktop parts are planned for next year.

reitzensteinm 12y ago

Their ability to sell parts with defective cores fused off makes this analysis really quite complicated. Ad absurdum, say only 1% the 18 core dies have no defects and can be sold as such. In a vacuum, the chip would have be priced very high to cover the costs of low yields. But since they can sell the defects at 8 cores for $1000 and 12 cores for $2000, they can be profitable on the reject chips alone. The 18 cores that work are a bonus. They're no doubt priced at what Intel thinks the market will bare, meaning that either the process is great (so they're priced low to sell a ton), or that there's just not that much demand for the most high end product. Or some combination of the two.

wmf 12y ago
The same logic is really obvious in GPUs, where you can get a 90%-good 600 sq. mm. chip for $500.
masklinn 12y ago
I'm not sure how it works out for these chips, but I remember stories a few years ago where the fabs were so high quality they didn't have enough defective chips to put in the lower bin, and had to bin "perfect" chips to reach target volumes.
- donavanm 12y ago
  The first few spins of AMD Athlons circa 1999/2000 were exceptional in this regard. Parts actually binned at 700mhz were downclocked and sold in 500mhz packages. I dont recall anything similar with Intel recently, maybe some if the core2 stuff.

Andys 12y ago

22nm isn't their leading edge process any more, 14nm is. 22nm has been out for several years now. Intel can get good economies of scale by using their big 450mm wafers (other fabs use 300mm) The transistor count IS very high, but there are others in the server space (eg. latest Oracle Sparc) that are even higher.

reitzensteinm 12y ago
Intel does not yet use 450mm wafers for any shipping products, that's quite a while away. http://blog.timesunion.com/business/intel-says-450mm-will-deploy-later-in-decade/59430/ http://blog.timesunion.com/business/intel-says-450mm-will-de...
- Andys 12y ago
  Thanks! I completely missed that important fact :)