Intel 45nm Processors Waiting to Clobber AMD's Barcelona?

DKC writes "Tech ARP's anonymous source claims that Intel is merely waiting for AMD to release their Barcelona processors before they clobber them with their 45nm die-shrinked processors. In fact, Intel is already producing these 45nm processors at one of their fabs in Arizona. AMD and Intel are in for a long and tough battle ahead. Should be an interesting one though."

Comments

Nice

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish other markets were like this. They compete: I win

Re:So who will win?

[Anonymous Coward]

Egads man, did you read the article? This isn't about horse racing, this is about computer processors! This is serious business!

Well, there is more than one truth

[imsabbel]

Intel cannot switch their production completely to those parts in a few month. they have huge amounts of 65nm cpus in production, plus they dont have to fab capacity to replace that production at 45nm.

Also, seeing that they already are > 3/4 of the (x86) cpu market, and AMD will only ramp up slowly, Intel would most of all hurt the sales of their own established product lines.

Re:Well, there is more than one truth

[RingDev]

Yes, but by switching to 45nm fabrication they are increasing the yield of their production facility, so they can produce more products for the same amount of raw material. Switching to 45nm chips is in Intel's best interests long term. Short term, selling down 65nm stock and spinning up production of 45nm tooling is in their best interest.

That said, I want AMD to come out with some kick ass chips. If it weren't for AMD forcing innovation down Intel's throat we would still be stuck with that crap they called the Pentium 4. If AMD continues to lag behind in performance and sales, it will only lead to slower development tracks from Intel.

-Rick

This is why I wish AMD was still as competitive.

[etymxris]

When Intel doesn't have to even compete with the latest offerings, business logic rules and technical improvements play second fiddle. Here we have "Why should we release this chip now? The old chips are cheaper to produce and since AMD can't even compete with our current lineup we can keep selling them at the same price, ensuring more profit for us."

So 45nm is not innovating?

[ion]

So 45nm is not innovating? If it was so easy to do, then we would have been there a long time ago. And AMD would have 45nm as well.

I think slashdot choose the wrong Subject, it makes it sound like intel is doing it to be evil. It's much more possible that they are waiting with the release to make more money. Some might think making money is evil, but i dont. I like making money.

If intel has the fastest and lowest power consumption now, and AMD is not a threat, so why release a faster CPU, intel can still make lots of money selling the old. When AMD releases their new CPU, intel has a response ready, meaning intel will make more money.

Intel is in the world to make money, not particular to ruin AMD, how ever if making ruining AMD makes more money, intel will most likely try.

Re:So 45nm is not innovating?

[linuxrocks123]

> Some might think making money is evil, but i dont. I like making money.

Whether making money is evil depends on how you make it. In particular, anticompetitive behavior is not a legal or moral way to make money.

Re:So 45nm is not innovating?

[Xiph1980]

Don't confuse a technological advancement with innovation.

45nm process has nothing to do with innovation. It's just the same technology, the same process, on a different scale.


Innovation is seeing a ball rolling, and making a bearing out of it. the 45nm process opposed to the 60nm process is seeing a 30cm diameter ball, and making a 40cm diameter ball.

Re:So 45nm is not innovating?

[Gospodin]

Yeah, try telling that to the IRS.

Re:So 45nm is not innovating?

[crgrace]

of the most impressive technological feats our society accomplishes on a regular basis. The45nm process has nothing to do with innovation. It's just the same technology, the same process, on a different scale.

What you declare is simply not true.

45nm is the result of a huge amount of innovation, just as 65nm was compared to 90nm. There are a lot of technological hurdles to overcome as the length of transistors are scaled. For example, improved high-k dielectrics are required to increase the channel capacitance and reduce leakage. Improved isolation between devices is required. Tighter tolerances for lithography are needed. Better control of ion implant doses are required. More stable silicides are needed to reduce interconnect resistance. Better drain structures are needed to deal with the increased electric field density in the transistor channels. Improved thermally conductive materials need to be developed because the heat density is increasing. I could go on and on and on. Scaling transistors is onere is a huge financial incentive to do so, and tens of thousands of engineers worldwide are attacking the problems from many angles.

What most people don't understand about device scaling is that it isn't a single problem to be solved. It is a huge number of equally challenging problems spanning multiple engineering disciplines.

Re:So 45nm is not innovating?

[servognome]

Innovation is seeing a ball rolling, and making a bearing out of it. the 45nm process opposed to the 60nm process is seeing a 30cm diameter ball, and making a 40cm diameter ball.

Except making the 30cm ball requires radical advancements in materials and processing. The end product may not be innovative, but the steps to make it are.

Re:So 45nm is not innovating?

[networkBoy]

How is Intel being anticompetitive?
I highly doubt they would sit on a process till AMD is out with a new product. The road to marketshare is not to wait for your competitor, it is to get your product out as far ahead as possible. Given the options I believe Intel is likely still working out some non-trivial (i.e. no microcode workaround) issues in the 45nM process before releasing.
Which sounds more plausible?
* Intel sits on a new process, risking sanctions, not making money (actually losing money given the cost of running a fab), just to beat AMD at their launch.
* Intel has some bugs to work out, and does not want to relive a PPro style recall for _any_ reason as that would be disaster.

-nB

Re:So 45nm is not innovating?

[Ryan Amos]

The idea itself is not innovative. The devil, as always, is in the details.

It actually does require innovation; old things have to be done in completely different ways.

What you're saying is that if someone created a space ship that could travel at light speed, that would not be innovative. We already have space ships that go slower than light speed, so it's trivial to scale it up. That's obviously not the case.

Ideas, by themselves, are worthless. The real innovation is how to actually do it. That, combined with the ability to do it, is what makes a technology company money. Nanoscale chip fabrication does in fact require real innovation. Materials at this scale have different properties than they do at a larger scale. If it didn't require innovation, we would have been making 5nm chips for years now.

Re:So 45nm is not innovating?

[Technician]

Given the options I believe Intel is likely still working out some non-trivial (i.e. no microcode workaround) issues in the 45nM process before releasing.
Which sounds more plausible?

Much more plausable is they are getting the pipeline filled while the manufactures are finishing evaluating the engineerinng samples (the chips marked Intel Confidential) and building a product. In a new product launch, having a shortage of product is bad. Manufacturing has little surge capacity built-in. It looks like a normal product roll-out to me.They are either aiming for the back to school launch or the fall Christmas shopping season. This is less about hitting AMD and more about beating the January market downturn. Just because AMD is trying to hit the same fall release schedule is not an accurate indicater Intel is doing this to hit AMD. Intel would release this fall if possible regardless of whether AMD was there or not. Check their release cycles. The only times they miss a cycle is when they have problems. They aim for back to school or the Christmas buying season. Early spring launches are rare and are usually covered by press coverage of missed launch dates.

where are the Barcelona benchmarks?

[Dr Kool, PhD]

Why is AMD holding back Barcelona? We're less than a month from launch and there are still no benchmarks. Intel allowed its 45nm chips to be benchmarked and they aren't coming out until November... why is AMD holding back?

IMO this does not look good for AMD.

Re:Whatever...

[Gr8Apes]

AMD has been crushing Intel for many years (on the order of at least 15) I'd say about 4, but hey, I like AMD.

and now that Intel slipped SLIGHTLY in the lead...I personally am a HUGE fan of AMD, and feel that their 64 bit technology is FAR superior to Intel's... Their new technology clearly leads, by 10-20%. However, it is their new technology running against 2004 AMD tech, which should be quite interesting when Barcelona finally ships. As for 64 bittedness, how is AMD's superior to Intel's? I'll admit that AMD's overall CPU design is superior, but the 64 bit extensions?

Plus the fact that memory and core bandwidth is so limited in Intel really makes me wonder how much longer Intel will go before going on-die with their memory controller. Intel will go to an on-board proprietary memory controller/architecture at the end of 2008/beginning of 2009, according to their roadmap.

Why wait?

[ArcherB]

If this article is true, it proves my theory that Intel sits on technology, milking every last dollar from the consumer before releasing something better. This is why I don't buy Intel.

Yes, I know, it's good business and makes the stockholders happy. But as a geek, I'm not into the business side of it. I am into the technology and performance aspect. What if AMD never releases Barcelona? Does Intel never release these new 45nm monsters (or only release them in the quantities already produced, at extremely inflated prices)?

It reminds me of the days of the AMD K6. Intel was "stuck" at 266 Mhz. Reaching beyond that was "impossible". Then, suddenly AMD released a K6 at 300Mhz. Within a week, Intel released the 300 and 333Mhz Pentiums (P-IIs I think). That kind of pissed me off. How much sooner could Intel have released the 300? How much further could they have gone? How many people were forced to pay top dollar while Intel sat back and quietly raked in the cash, knowing that they were selling an inferior product marketed as "the best we can do", when, quite frankly, it wasn't.

This is the action of a monopoly, plain and simple.

Re:Why wait?

[jd]

Nothing unusual for Intel. Transmeta's work on efficiency was bettered by Intel suspiciously quickly and easily. More than a few developments have "appeared" shortly after the competition bettered them in something. There are only two exceptions that I know of. The first was maths co-processing, in which Intel lagged the competition on both price AND performance until they eliminated the entire niche by producing the 486DX. The second was the 32/64 processor architecture. In both cases, it took Intel many years to do anything.

Based on those examples, I would say that genuine progress by Intel is slow, and that any sudden shifts are really the result of having already produced the technology and holding it back.

Re:Why wait?

[rhartness]

Be careful what you wish for. There is a slim chance that Intel could be holding onto this technology because they don't want to be 'anti-competitive'. Let's assume Intel could hypothetically release chips that are twice as fast as anything that is out there right now. What would happen? It could kill AMD if Intel can keep up that technological growth at a much superior rate than AMD. Anti-trust lawsuits would follow.

But, before you call the anti-trust lawyers a bunch of SOB's stifeling technological growth, consider this. If Intel did run AMD out of existance. Intel would no longer have a reason to sink as much money in R&D. They could slack off with only moderate growth and nobody could do anything about it.

I dare say Intel understands very well and they are going to do all that they can to remain #1 in the industry while at the same time avoiding all possible litigation that could be brought against them by the competition.

Re:Why wait?

[CaffeineAddict2001]

or in otherwords:
But mommy!! I want it *NOW*

AMD is in precarious condition

[DrDitto]

I really hope AMD survives because then we are effectively down to a single commodity processor company. But AMD is struggling to survive. I don't care what the fanboys say, just look at their financial numbers. Third quarter in a row with massive losses. Intel opened the door a bit when they faltered with their Pentium4/Itanium strategy. But the door is swinging back shut. Nobody can keep pace with Intel on process technology...they will be ahead of the curve for the forseeable future. AMD is on such a tight-rope that they cannot afford a single mistake or major delay. Since acquiring ATI, nVidia has nearly all of the laptop chipset sales. You wonder if AMD overpaid for ATI. The "wow" factor that came with Opteron is not there with Barcelona. I'm skeptical...

Re:AMD is in precarious condition

[Knara]

Actually if you really look close, cash flow for 3rd quarter was positive. They're not making money hand over fist (actually net profit is down, though down less than 2nd quarter), but they're not going anywhere any time soon (their assets exceed their liabilities by ~5billion dollars, and their cash/cash equivalents + short term investments are around 1.5billion dollars as of end of third quarter). Obviously they won't replace Intel anytime soon, but they're not in dire straits, either.

Re:Where are the new motherboards

[Celandine]

Barcelona is supposed to drop into your existing socket F motherboard with a BIOS update.

Re:This is why I wish AMD was still as competitive

[hobbesmaster]

So, is it better to release something while you're getting low yields and have it show up almost nowhere (the case for the first few months of the core 2 release) or to wait until you can actually have a good number on the shelves, and keep pumping them out?

Third Player Will Steal the Gold

[MOBE2001]

AMD and Intel are in for a long and tough battle ahead. Should be an interesting one though.

While these two Goliaths are locking horns and fighting over soon-to-be-obsolete technology, a third player will sneak behind them and steal the pot of gold. Let's face it. CPU architecture is due for a radical change. The computer world is going parallel and the old algorithm/thread paradigm is showing its age. There's a sweet scent of revolution in the air. Who will be the leader of the next revolution? Sun, IBM, Tilera? We'll see.

Welcome to capitalism

[nobodyman]

AMD would do exactly the same thing if the situation were reversed. In fact, they did just that back in the Pentium 4 days. This underscores why competition is such a good thing.

If you like spending $250+ on a CPU, sure.

[Inoshiro]

When I looked at upgrading my system, I had a choice. The Core 2 Duos that weren't crippled and had a proper amount of L2 cache started at $240. The AMD X2 systems with built-in memory controller and decent amounts of L2 cache started at $75.

Right now on any web site, you can order a X2 CPU with full dedicated L2 cache per core for around $70. The cheapest Core 2 Duo is the E4300 at $150. That has a bottlenecked 800Mhz FSB, not a fancy 2.0Ghz hypertransport bus like the X2. To get a 1066Mhz FSB C2D requires you go up to $190 or so.

Intel motherboards seem to require a premium as well. nVidia can make AM2 chipsets with firewire, dual ethernet, onboard 7.1 audio, multiple SATA and eSATA connectors, etc, for roughly $100 less than then equivalent Intel chipset board. Is that because Intel wants more $$ for its chipset licences?

So... when you do get this same base performance, it comes at a price. Honestly, you would be better served by getting an 8800 instead of an 8600 GeForce for the difference in CPU and motherboard costs. Plus, those SLI motherboards for AM2 are around $150 vs. the $220 + for Intel ones.

Intel's Not Waiting for Anything

[Glasswire]

There seems to be a conspritorial thread running though alot of these comments which seems to assume that Intel already HAS 45nm processing up and running in volume and is deliberately holding it back just to make AMD looks bad. This is ridiculous for several reasons:

1) If Intel could produce volume 45nm right now it would - better chips, cheaper to make, higher performance, higher margin on the best ones - why would they hold back?
2) Even if Intel just cared about humiliating AMD, it would do it much more thoughly if Intel could bring out the 45nm stuff BEFORE Barcelona even ships. Believe me, if Intel could do that, it would.
3) Anyone who has any idea what's going on in the industry knows Intel is putting massive effort behind getting out the 45nm technology as soon as possible. There is NO financial upside in living with older process technology any longer than you have to. (Unless you're AMD and you don't have the latest process technology and have to bring out your flagship quad core on old 65nm process)

So, in summary, 45nm stuff may well give Barcelona a run for it's money, but there's no way Intel is holding it back for dramatic effect.

Re:Right, AMD is not competitive.

[Hoplite3]

Yeah, but performance is not the top concern anymore. The three big questions are
(1) How much power does it draw?
(2) How much heat does it make?
(3) How loud is it?

The market is worried about how "livable" computers are. That's why laptop sales have grown so much.

AMD x2's are good chips (I have one and like it fine), but the market will turn on efficiency questions not performance.

Re:Right, AMD is not competitive.

[Anonymous Coward]

So you overclocked and they didn't? Somehow you think you can compare the systems?

Score per buck

[Kokuyo]

I don't quite understand why people link AMD's demise with benchmarks all the time. That's just a small part of the whole truth.

Fact is, there are several types of clients in the computer market. Some are early adopters/hardcore users. They buy whatever earns them the highest benchmark scores. They are willing to pay 5 grand plus for a system just to have one sick fucker of a computer under their desk. I'd say they're a minority.
Then there's those who listen to the commercials. I don't know how it is in America but in Switzerland I have yet to see a tv commercial for AMD CPUs. So who's wondering why people still think there's only one CPU manufacturer?
A lot of people who know AMD isn't just a cheap chinese copy that will probably have trouble adding two and two in calc.exe will want to build a somewhat up to date system they can rely on to do its job for the next two or three years. They use some graphics tools, they run a few games, they browse the web, the skype from time to time and they watch their porn. Those people don't need the V12 1000 hp equivalents in the computer world. They need a midrange machine with reliable hardware. Overclocking? What for?
People like that, which includes me, buy what gives them a balance of most bang and reliability for the buck. I'll admit, I deviated from that path with my current system. I am running a Core2Duo. Why? Because AMD couldn't sell me a CPU when I needed one. And I am actually happy with my Intel. Do I see more power? Hell no. My stuff runs. Command and Conquer Tiberium Wars runs. World of Warcraft ran... until I got fed up with it.

I don't care for labels. I'll select the third or fourth newest chip unless it's only like ten bucks to the next faster one. I'll select like two gigs of memory upwards. I'll select a board that will work with my watercooling and be of agreeable quality. I'll select a somewhat actual but cheap video card. Somewhere in the middle of the range of available cards from my vendor of choice.

The point where about any PC made of parts from the last two years would run everything I need has been crossed years ago. Today reliability, noise, power consumption and such are factors... and the price. And I don't see Intel beating AMD in that regard anytime soon.

These guys are idiots

[adisakp]

From the article:

Until AMD launches the Barcelona, Intel have no reason to start selling 45 nm processors.

Umm, that's not true at all. Here are some reasons:

1) Lower cost - you get more 45nm CPU's per wafer than 65nm CPU's so they cost less if you have similar yield ratios.

2) Lower power systems are attractive now to large purchasers. On a system level, AMD is very competitive with Intel (and sometimes ahead of Intel) on performance per watt. This is very important to companies with huge server farms.

3) Higher single-threaded performance per core. The 45 nm shrink will allow them to run cooler and at higher clock speeds thus producing high-end high-margin CPU's that gamers and performance junkies crave.

4) The way to crush your opponents isn't to let them catch up before you move forward. Have you ever seen someone in a relay race wait for their opponent simply because they know the next runner on their own team is fast? You have to get ahead and stay ahead as far as possible. If you even let them have the appearance of catching up, you won't maintain your image of indomitable superiority.

Re:Right, AMD is not competitive.

[MojoStan]

A friend of mine and myself both upgraded our desktop PCs. They chose an Intel Core 2 Duo because "Intel wins in all the benchmarks." I bought AMD instead.

I knew right away, from your tone and your friend's quote, that you would buy for price/performance and your friend would buy for performance only. An unfair, biased comparison would follow. Did your friend know he or she was competing in a price/performance contest?

Their system is based around a E6600 ($270 at the time), mine is based around an X2 3600+ 65nm ($75 at the time).

"At the time" is not the "current lineup," which the GP was referring to. Way to go there, comparing a mid-range (at the time) Intel CPU to a low-end (at the time) AMD CPU. Don't mention that $270 currently gets you Intel's E6850 (3GHz, 1333MHz, 4MB) and almost gets you Intel's Quad Q6600 ($280). $75 currently gets you Intel's (Core 2 based) Pentium Dual-Core E2140.

Their system has 2gb of RAM, mine has 4gb of RAM.

RAM costs the same for both platforms.

My motherboard (with nVidia chipset) was $80 cheaper than their P5B Deluxe.

I'm sure "they" could have bought a significantly cheaper motherboard. Currently, an ASUS P5NSLI motherboard (with nForce 570 SLI Intel Edition chipset) is $45 cheaper (at Newegg) than your ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe (with nForce 570 SLI AMD Edition chipset).

Overall my system was $400 cheaper -- with double the RAM.

You bought a low-end CPU and a mid-range motherboard. Your friend bought a mid-range CPU and a high-end motherboard. You also bought at a time when AMD drastically slashed prices in response to Intel kicking their arse in the mid-range and high-end. At the time, AMD was only competitive in the low-end (where Intel still only offered Netburst CPUs).

I go into my Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe BIOS and change the clock rate of my CPU from 1.9Ghz to 2.4Ghz with no ill effects and get the same # of 3D Marks as them because I have the same kind of video card (8600 GTS PCI-E).

Yeah, that's a fair comparison. Overclock your low-end AMD CPU and compare it to a mid-range Intel CPU at stock speeds.

They're happy because they bought "performance" (as sold to them via Intel marketing), and I'm happy because I bought the same performance (as proved by benchmarks) for a lot less.

If they're happy, then they probably didn't know they were competing in a price/performance contest with you.

For my workstation use in Linux compiling and rendering and working with large images, 4gb of RAM that run at the same speed as L2 cache (thanks to AMD's integrated memory controller) beats the piss out of that Intel setup (which has much lower memory bw and also half the RAM). For gaming use, I get the same # of 3D Marks and similar performance because an Intel 2.4Ghz CPU and an AMD 2.4Ghz CPU happen to be within a few % of each other on the same video card (which is the true bottleneck; don't lie to yourself and say it's that CPU that's 14-18x faster than RAM).

Today, a $280 Quad Q6600 on a $130 ASUS P5N-E (nForce 650i SLI) beats the piss out of an equivalently priced AMD workstation in compiling, rendering, and large images. If you're willing to risk stability and reliability by overclocking (like you did), then a $90 Pentium Dual-Core E2160 can be overclocked to 3.4GHz (according to X-bit Labs) and beat the piss out of any Athlon 64 X2 system with the same RAM, GPU, and class of motherboard.

I got the same performance for $400, but with more RAM. My CPU was $190 cheaper. My motherboard was also cheaper.

Your friend did not need to spend so much on his/her motherboard. Your friend did not overclock. Today, a cheaper system built around an overclocked Pentium Dual-Core E2160 and an nForce 570 SLI moth