3 hours ago by mdasen
I'd be more interested in hearing about the terms of the Qualcomm deal. Is Qualcomm putting its eggs in the Intel basket for 2025 or has Intel reached an agreement with Qualcomm that Qualcomm will buy from them if it fits Qualcomm's needs and it's ready in time?
If the agreement is "Qualcomm will send some of its business Intel's way," that isn't a huge vote of confidence. Heck, are we talking about Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8xx series or just some Qualcomm chips like the ones they put in WiFi routers? Or their low-end Snapdragon 4xx series?
The article is kinda spinning it as "Intel will be making the Qualcomm chips going into everyone's phones," but it could be more "Qualcomm is going to have Intel manufacture its low-end stuff which is always behind tech-wise and Intel is giving them a big discount because Intel needs a win."
> In the chip world where smaller is better, Intel previously used names that alluded to the size of features in "nanometers". But over time the names used by chipmakers became arbitrary marking terms... This, he said, gave the mistaken impression that Intel was less competitive.
They are definitely less competitive at this point. Nanometers might not be the right measurement, but one can measure transistor density. Maybe that would make more sense?
Even if "Intel 7" (10nm Enhanced SuperFin) is equivalent to TSMC's 7nm, we saw TSMC's 7nm back in 2018. I have a TSMC 5nm in my pocket. I guess if Intel can keep to its road map, it will catch up. If "Intel 4" comes out with products in early 2023, it won't be far behind TSMC's 3nm process (which will likely debut in the 2022 iPhone).
Of course, we'll have to see how well these Intel chips perform. We should be able to benchmark Intel 7 processors with Alder Lake processors landing later this year. Will these stand up well against AMD's 7nm Zen 2/3? Will they stand up against AMD's upcoming 5nm Zen 4? I guess we'll be able to test Intel's chips against what AMD has been shipping and see how well Intel 7 stands up against both 7nm and 5nm processes.
3 hours ago by kayson
Disclaimer: Qualcomm employee with no inside knowledge of the terms of the deal, opinions are my own.
Generally fabless semiconductor companies use a variety of foundries and processes for their products. It largely depends on the technical requirements of the particular project as well as the cost of the node. In the early stages of a product development cycle, the team will choose a foundry/process and stick with it to the end. In rare cases the process will switch mid-stream, but this is costly because design essentially has to start over. (For digital, this would be after RTL is frozen; for analog/RF, a change at any point requires starting over)
Sometimes, second sources are added after the first source is in production. These tend to be the lower cost fabs like SMIC or UMC, but they in turn design their processes to be drop in replacements for top fabs like TSMC and Samsung to make it easy to switch over.
Given the above, and that Intel's process is not aimed at copying TSMC/SEC, I would guess that you'll slowly see a handful of non-critical products rolling out on "Intel 7". If the process turns out to be performant enough, you'll see more, even possibly higher end more critical product lines. Don't forget that Qualcomm isn't just about Snapdragon. There is a boatload of RF, Power Management, IoT and WiFi as well.
3 hours ago by stefan_
No one would make WiFi router chips or even low-end smartphone processors on these processes.
25 minutes ago by jrockway
My (limited) understanding is that a lot of beamforming / MIMO techniques are limited by the power budget of the WiFi chips. So if you could use the fanciest processes, the WiFi chips could be better. I don't know if that's worth the price (everyone expects WiFi to suck 24/7), or if the process helps there, but it does sound like manufacturing technology, not math, is the limiting factor for WiFi right now.
2 hours ago by kllrnohj
Not sure why you're being downvoted, you're absolutely correct.
The low-end 400 series is a good 1-2 processes behind, being 11nm currently with the Snapdragon 480 5G (2021) on what looks to be Samsung's 8nm (aka, Samsung 10nm+), and the Qualcomm 215 (2019) is on 28nm even.
Qualcomm isn't going to buy bleeding-edge foundry space for a low-end product, and definitely not for a wifi router which has almost no power or significant performance constraints.
2 hours ago by sempron64
They never said which process the foundry services will provide, it's entirely possible they'll use the extremely mature 14nm++ process.
2 hours ago by DaiPlusPlus
> but one can measure transistor density. Maybe that would make more sense
Though by stacking 2D layers they can artificially balloon their density figures: 7nm is nominally ~95 million transistors per mm2 - but stack two of them and you can boast having 185MTr/mm2
I just found this: https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/bx9408/how_does_i... - so yeah, numbers are meaningless
3 hours ago by klelatti
Wasn't Qualcomm announced as a 20A customer?
an hour ago by discordance
For those who donât know, thatâs 20 angstroms (1 Ă = 0.1 nm, or 10â»Âčâ° m)
4 hours ago by nightowl_games
They'll do it too. They'll catch up, because it's in the US Government's interest for them to catch up. Buy Intel Stock.
4 hours ago by btown
I wouldn't go so far as to say "buy Intel stock" because institutional investors have likely already adjusted to the announcement and it's likely priced in.
That said, I think government encouragement is a critical piece of the puzzle and should derisk this operation. The recent supply shocks to the computer industry, when component prices and lead times shot up independent of any geopolitical conflicts (other than COVID), must have been a wake-up call to many that the US's relative lack of foundry capabilities has real strategic implications.
4 hours ago by arcanus
Do you believe the US government is willing to commit the resources necessary for Intel to catch up?
Intel's R+D spending (13 billion U.S. dollars) is already larger than the entire annual NSF budget (10 billion).
3 hours ago by totalZero
It's an existential question. Right now the US economy is entirely dependent upon Taiwanese semiconductor fabrication. This isn't a glaring problem yet, because China is also dependent upon the same supply chain, giving rise to a mutual incentive not to rock the boat too hard. However, China has dedicated substantial resources to building its own fab infrastructure since well before the pandemic [0], with the goal of establishing a parallel ecosystem that circumvents the US-controlled supply chain [1]. If the US does not follow suit, its dependence upon Taiwan becomes a massive liability.
How much did we spend on the Iraq War, despite our own country being a major producer of oil and gas? Our economic incentive to entangle ourselves in Taiwan is even greater, but the stakes of military confrontation with China would be more dangerous. How much would you pay to avert such a conflict -- or worse, to avert the consequences of acquiescing to China's expansionism? Ironically, dependency on Taiwanese semiconductor fabrication reduces our ability to defend the island. Until the time that a fab interruption there would not halt our economy, Taiwan remains a US pressure point and China will continue to press it.
I think $200 billion is a cheap price tag for a path forward that involves neither warfare nor perpetual paranoia about every perturbation in the South China Sea. Taiwan established itself as a semiconductor powerhouse largely because its government backed TSMC. South Korea's government bends over backwards for Samsung, which makes up about a fifth of their GDP. The way forward for the US may be similar in mentality: throw the government behind the industry. US fabs need resilient and high-quality infrastructure for power, water, and logistics. We can use the collimated power and authority of the government to yield a vastly more effective long-term solution than piecemeal tax credits on lithography scanners.
[0] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/04/china-ramps-up-own-semicondu...
42 minutes ago by ac29
> Right now the US economy is entirely dependent upon Taiwanese semiconductor fabrication.
I'd be curious to see this quantified in some way. TSMC has a lead at the moment for bleeding edge fabrication, but Intel isnt that far behind and is massive in scale (revenue is nearly double TSMC, though its not an apples to apples comparison). A lot of the most impactful shortages this past year were in non-sexy parts like microcontrollers and other lower end chips that can be built in many different countries, since they are fairly simple (28nm, 40nm and even larger processes are commonly used).
The world is intertangled enough that losing Taiwan for some reason would be pretty bad, but I cant think of another country better equipped to handle semiconductor production than the US (Korea and Japan do well also, but at smaller scale than the US).
3 hours ago by sremani
Their #2 company has failed miserably and exposed as fraud. SMIC is the only game in town in China.
>> How much did we spend on the Iraq War, despite our own country being a major producer of oil and gas?
With all due respect, from 2004 - 2007, all we were talking about is Peak Oil and US was not such a major producer then as we are today. So some recency bias here.
>>The way forward for the US may be similar in mentality: throw the government behind the industry.
Yes, US will become mercantilist again, and I will rejoice but the goddamn world will burn or not.
3 hours ago by baybal2
> Our economic incentive to entangle ourselves in Taiwan is even greater, but the stakes of military confrontation with China would be more dangerous.
> How much would you pay to avert such a conflict -- or worse, to avert the consequences of acquiescing to China's expansionism?
These are questions easier to answer than what most people think.
There are countless unclassified defence studies with very good estimates of how much would USA loose in case of an all out war with a nuclear state for worst, medium, best scenarios. I'll encourage readers to check them themselves.
Washington defence planners are most well aware of these things.
The later question is much more important, and with more real world relevance.
> consequences of acquiescing to China's expansionism?
There is no limit on on how much "acquiescing" you can do before such states will come up with more claims.
Remember "Finlandisation" precluding the WW2, and how it ended.
Giving the most minimal concessions to such opponent will instantly lead to them wanting more, and more, until you will have to retaliate, but now against much stronger enemy.
There is no "strategy," no political trick that works against opponent planning to attack you from the start no matter what. All treaties, political manoeuvres, compromise moves, even overt tribute payments will be only delaying the inevitable encounter in cul de sac.
In Russia, people gave a simple way to characterise behaviour of such people: "A guy who wouldn't stop until punched in the face."
4 hours ago by lettergram
I believe the US military would easily be willing to plow $10B.
Now, does that mean intel will actually be effective? I have my doubts, baring some sort of shotgun approach where multiple experimental fabs are done simultaneously.
3 hours ago by nicoburns
I'm not sure how much difference that would make. Intel already has $20B in cash reserves and is still making large profits (in the billions of dollars). Their problems have nothing to do with lack money.
4 hours ago by AtlasBarfed
I have been ragging Intel for a long time since the NetBurst debacle, but it's still a massive company with the x86 cash cow for at least another half-decade until AMD closes a bit of a gap.
They have the resources and history to recover. I have heard references to massive managerial layer problems and treating contractors like crap and the brain drain of the old guard, but those aren't intractable problems.
Intel has responded in the past. AMD looked completely dead in the Hector Ruiz waning days, and look at them now. Empower some good engineers and watch what happens.
2 hours ago by crocodiletears
This is a defense issue. That's a much larger reservoir to tap into.
3 hours ago by elzbardico
In the great scheme of military spending things, 10 billions is small change.
2 hours ago by tooltalk
it's very often the case that US companies sacrifice national interests to save their insane profit margin -- Apple being one most notable example (or Nike who recently declared "the brand was of China and for China." (duck)
I'm pretty sure Intel will eventually triumph and reclaim their crown, but I wonder if what more the gov't can do to speed up their way to the top? I don't think the company was held back by red tapes or lack of R&D, capital funding (or tax incentive).
4 hours ago by tim_sw
How can you be sure that itâs Intel and not other players or a consortium?
3 hours ago by wmf
If you want a "truly American" company (not TSMC or Samsung), Intel is the only option. The question is whether that's important or not.
3 hours ago by nicoburns
Personally, I really hope we keep all 3 of these companies (and maybe gain a 4th competitor in the form of SMIC) for as long as possible. Having a variety of companies producing chips is important both for competition and supply chain resilience reasons.
3 hours ago by dragontamer
IBM is made at GloFo, which is both an American chip designer with an American fabricator.
But GloFo is falling behind for sure. I don't think POWER10 will be made at GloFo.
2 hours ago by ewag
I wouldn't invest anytime soon. Intel is so focused on making every single foundry workflow identical that they lose the flexibility that is more and more sought after these days.
It is kind of crazy how Intel's strength has turned into such a weakness. Qualcomm will eventually figure out that Intel is way too inflexible execute on their business.
Stick to mass production Intel, it's what you are OK at.
4 hours ago by klelatti
Can anyone explain what evidence there is that Intel will be able to deliver all this?
Not taking a view just interested in how to assess the credibility of the roadmap.
3 hours ago by nicoburns
The fact that they've replaced their CEO with a highly-respected (within the company) former engineer and they've been rehiring a lot of other veteran former employees who were involved in many of their historical successes is certainly a good sign.
It's still a tall order, but my reading is that they seem to be doing all the right things. And they certainly aren't short of cash to invest with.
3 hours ago by arcanus
> rehiring a lot of other veteran former employees who were involved in many of their historical successes is certainly a good sign
They certainly are trying to get the band back together. I see little reason this means they can turn around a huge beast.
3 hours ago by tw04
> I see little reason this means they can turn around a huge beast.
Why do you see little reason? We have repeated examples in recent history of a strong leader turning around what appears to be an immovable object. Jobs at Apple. Nadella at Microsoft. Su at AMD.
I see little reason to believe Intel canât do the same. They have the technology and history to be successful, they just appear to have had management that wasnât prepared to deal with a changing market.
2 hours ago by ksec
They are basically rebranding their node size to TSMC's ( or more like Samsung's ) naming scheme.
10nm to 7nm. 7nm to 4nm 7nm+ to 3nm 5nm to 2nm
And all of them make senes and has been known for quite some time. I remember writing something on SemiWiki in 2018. So really they are pushing their 7nm to next year, their first node with full usage of EUV. An iteration of 7nm in 2023. I say iteration when in reality that was always the original target of Intel's 7nm. And 5nm in 2024.
10nm is already shipping, and judging by their product lineup seems to be yielding a lot better. Their 7nm next year are all going to be for their Aurora project anyway. So my guess is that it is more like a place holder with little actual capacity for anyone else including Intel's DC and Consumer business. Shipping their own product with 7nm+ / 3nm in 2023. And the real test will be 2nm in 2024. Is it aggressive? Yes, plausible? I am quite optimistic.
>evidence there is that Intel will be able to deliver all this?
Yes. Intel's biggest problem wasn't 10nm, or their chip performance. It was their mentality of keeping Fat profit margin from end product sales. And business School to this day continue to teach the same crap over and over again. That is why having MBA as CEO in tech hardly ever works. The evidence here is quite clear. Intel is really betting on being a Foundry. I do not believe Qualcomm and Amazon will sign up Intel if the price wasn't right. It means Intel is finally doing their second Andrew Grove Moment pivoted Intel away from DRAM to microprocessors, except this time to Custom Fab. As he once said. "Our Strategy is Simple, we build Fabs and we fill them."
2 hours ago by klelatti
Foundry must be a no-brainer for them now given the political situation. Actually a bit surprised they didn't have more to announce on that front.
4 hours ago by zionic
For the curious:
https://www.tweaktown.com/news/50551/intel-confirms-10nm-pro...
3 hours ago by tablespoon
Per the OP, it sounds like they're taking more conservative/incremental steps now, and their previous fault was that they were too ambitious and tried to do too much at once.
My understanding is Intel's rivals also took a more incremental development process, which basically allowed them to capitalize on Intel's missteps.
3 hours ago by bstar77
"But David Kanter, an analyst with Real World Technologies, said Intel is being more cautious than in the past. The years of delays resulted in part from the "hubris" of tackling multiple technical problems in a single generation of technology."
That's some serious spin there. The chatter has been that Intel has had poor focus, poor working conditions, poor investments, poor communication within the company and a plethora of hubris. They need a culture overhaul and that seems to be what's happening. The jury is out to where they take this. I would bet on their competitors at this point.
an hour ago by paulmd
> The jury is out to where they take this. I would bet on their competitors at this point.
that's a completely uninformed take on the topic. This is like betting on Airbus because Boeing has problems with the 737 - when the reality is there is no circumstance whatsoever where the federal government would allow Boeing to go under.
Intel is already being propped up with some sweet gigs doing supercomputer stuff for the National Labs (that their actual hardware probably does not justify on the merits - much like the national labs throw AMD a bone with CDNA in the GPU compute market) and a bunch of R&D tax cuts. The US also negotiated their way into a TSMC gigafab as a fallback strategy but they very much would prefer the American fab company makes it through as well, and they'll spend the cash to make it happen.
It's far cheaper and faster to get the existing competitor back up to speed, than to build a new foundry company from scratch, or even to just build a TSMC gigafab.
Their competitors also aren't american companies. GloFo is controlled by UAE investors. TSMC is controlled by Taiwan. Samsung is controlled by a Korean chaebol. AMD and Apple are fabless companies. Intel is the only US company still designing chips and producing them at a US foundry on any kind of a competitive level in the performance computing market.
3 hours ago by klelatti
Having watched the Webcast it didn't sound that conservative!
7,4,3,20A in 4 years.
3 hours ago by websg-x
7 is half node, 4 full node, 3 half, 20A full node again. Moore's law is doubling of transistors density every 2 years. So the roadmap is indeed conservative, just following the Moore's law.
2 hours ago by thoughtstheseus
The value is really owning some percentage of the foundry market. Only a few can be cutting edge, expensive and time consuming. Better to compete now on volume and cost.
2 hours ago by h2odragon
Yet another Intel revolution, where they rotate the business strategy 360 degrees and turn the bullshit screw one more notch on the way to utter irrelevance.
But, hey, how about that flash business? oh.
an hour ago by stevespang
:)
2 hours ago by ineedasername
Makes sense, they have fabs on different process nodes, and if they aren't keeping them running at capacity with their own chips they should be running someone else's design through them. I know, it's not as simple as all of that, but a pivot to serving fables designers as well as their own needs seems like a necessary step as they continue to work out their < 10nm processes.
2 hours ago by fomine3
Personally it's sad that we (may) miss Qualcomm's SoCs built with TSMC's latest 5nm and further process. Possible MediaTek's SoC become best perf-watt high-end SoC for Android?
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