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Intel Opens Doors To Rivals, Maybe
Rambo Tribble writes "In what appears to be a major reversal of policy, Intel's new president, Renee James, has indicated that Intel will be open to manufacturing chips based on rivals' designs. While the language is a bit tentative, this appears to open an opportunity for such as ARM to benefit from Intel's manufacturing expertise and technology."
From the article: "James said Intel will evaluate prospective foundry clients on a 'deal by deal basis, not on an architecture by architecture basis.' That applies, James said, 'even in areas where there may be some competition with businesses that we’re in.'" Intel is already manufacturing FPGAs for Altera that include 64-bit ARM cores.
Will be among their first clients...
If you are going to run a silicon foundry business then telling your customers what not to invent is not a strong position.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
considering ARM is a fabless IC designer, i dont think they are going to jump on this offer.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
This could play out like this:
1. Intel has excess manufacturing capacity and decided to lease it out to increase its revenue.
2. Intel will charge an arm and a leg for this service, given its fab technology (and yield) is far better than, say, TSMC and other Asian chip plans.
3. (not likely, but possible) Intel deliberately sabotages chips built for competitors.
4. ???
5. Profit.
Seriously, Intel always wins!!
IF intel would allow nvidia to print its chips @ intel (and I say if, because they now are kind of competitors with the xeon phi and co. ).
This forces Global Foundries to be more competitive with Intel, which benefits AMD.
GF, TMSC, etc. have been riding the [profitable] curve of being a generation back. That is, Intel is always a generation [or two] ahead, but also incurs significant R&D costs to do so. The competitors could wait and get the same results for far less investment in R&D. They could do this because Intel wasn't competing with them [by producing ASIC's, FPGA's, etc.]
This forces the non-Intel foundries to produce cutting edge stuff sooner. AMD was a big chagrined after spinning off GF and seeing it fall back into the TMSC model [making AMD less competitive against Intel].
The benefit for Intel is trifold:
- More ROI for their expensive fabs. Previously, costs were always recovered because the PC market was always expanding. With this now shrinking, a nextgen Intel fab may need to do piece work to stay profitable.
- Forcing the competition to compete head on [with the increased costs of being first generation], weakening them in the process [pun intended].
- A toe-in-the-water with ARM and mobile space [Atom notwithstanding] as a hedge against x86 arch going the way of the dinosaurs [without the stigma to x86 of a full fledged announcement of direct ARM support].
Like a good neighbor, fsck is there
I would argue that computer technology is not going to change much from now. Smaller lithography used to get faster transistors, more compact (cheaper) transistors, and lower power transistors. Now, it gets primarily lower power transistors. nvidia argued with TSMC about the end of the decline of transistor costs about a year ago. I also argue that the Xbox One, and PS4 will be around for a long time.
Is quite the equal of most cutting-edge fabs.
I live in Hillsboro, Oregon, about 15 miles west of Portland. Intel has more employees in this area, Hillsboro OR, than any other Intel location. I have worked in the computer industry a long time, but I have never been an employee of Intel.
Intel is currently building a new fab, "D1X", at their enormous Ronler Acres facility here. According to the public media, this is for the "14nm" node, using 300mm wafers. That would make D1X roughly the second-most sophisticated fab in the world after the new Chandler, AZ fab which apparently supports 450mm wafers. (A friend described Chandler as "moving from hubcaps to manhole covers.")
Prior to the 14nm D1X fab, Intel apparently had 22nm and 32nm fabs (buildings) here at Ronler Acres.
This question - these "older" Intel fabs, like the 22nm and 32nm fabs at Ronler - has been an occasional subject of discussion with friends in the industry. The article posted here helps answer the question. Bottom line is that Intel is so far ahead of most competitors - maybe not all, but most - that their "previous" fab becomes an extremely appealing place to build almost any high-end device.
As I said, I've never been employed by Intel and my views come from the public media and conversations at the local public houses. Ymmv.
The terms that Intel has been insisting on are so completely alien and different from the tabless/SoC market that everything about Intel's plan is non-operatable and a non-starter. Basically Intel is saying:
I suspect their IT infrastructure is incapable of handling the "open-ness" required. Basically the entire offering is 100% fail. Anyone with a brain can see going ARM is better in everyday.