Intel's Tick-Tock Cycle Skips a Beat

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Intel's Tick-Tock Cycle Skips a Beat

Posted by Soulskill on Friday July 17, 2015 @03:46AM from the tock-amongst-yourselves dept.

New submitter Ramze writes: Several outlets are reporting on Intel's confirmation that it will make three generations of 14nm processors, delaying the switch to 10nm. The planned 14nm Kaby Lake processor marks the first time Intel has skipped the "tick" of a die shrink on its regular "tick/tock" cycle. Production of Cannonlake processors on 10nm has been pushed back to the second half of 2017 — likely due to manufacturing difficulties. Intel reported earlier this year that it may have to switch away from silicon to exotic materials such as indium gallium arsenide to make the next shrink to 7nm.

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Boring. by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-17 03:50 · Score: -1

Doesn't anyone stop to think that the relentless march of technology is getting us nowhere?
1. Re: Boring. by bill_mcgonigle · 2015-07-17 04:02 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  I know - the transistor count should have enabled us to build neural nets to filter out inane AC comments by now.
  
  --
  My God, it's Full of Source!
  OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
2. Re:Boring. by Ceriel+Nosforit · 2015-07-17 04:07 · Score: 1
  
  ACTUALLY, it is getting us into a fickle afterlife & fantasy world where the sum of your desires make the walls of your sepulchre.
  MAYBE you are already in your afterlife, eternal and alone with your base ego.
  
  --
  All rites reversed 2010
3. Re:Boring. by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-17 04:17 · Score: 1
  
  Smaller transistors result in bloated and sloppy code. That's what's been happening for 20 years now. When I think about how much faster (at a hardware level) my current computer is relative to my old 486SX 33MHz, and how I still have to spend time waiting for the damn thing to catch up to what I'm trying to do, I just have to shake my head. At this point, I have no reason to not believe that this is the way it will be forever. All gains made in hardware speed will be wasted by software bloat.
4. Re: Boring. by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-17 04:25 · Score: -1
  
  Yeah, because logged in users as so much more value to the conversation. e.g. fuckwits like you.
5. Re: Boring. by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-17 04:34 · Score: 1
  
  Back when I actually cared enough to be a signed in user I would have my prefs treat a Funny comment downward. Far. Funny comments are or were the scourge of /. - now I just don't care. /. is the scourge of /. Now I use alterslash as another layer of filtering and post as AC.
6. Re: Boring. by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-17 05:02 · Score: 0
  
  unfortunately this moron's comments were captured by alterslash...
7. Re: Boring. by Kjella · 2015-07-17 05:04 · Score: 1, Informative
  
  I know - the transistor count should have enabled us to build neural nets to filter out inane AC comments by now.
  Hardly. The brain has ~100 billion neurons and 100-500 trillion synapses, of which the latter is closest to a transistor. Leading CPU/GPUs have 5-9 billion transistors or less than 0.01% of that. Remember, we are approaching atom size but only in an extremely thin 2D slice. Current processors are about 100k*100k transistors big, if we could have the same density in three dimensions we'd have 100k^3 = 1000 trillion transistors in a 2.5 cm cube, comparable or even beyond the brain in density. I wouldn't try cooling it though as 100000k*100-250W power consumption means it'd consume >10 MW.
  The brain only operates at ~100 Hz though, at least that's the rate synapses pass signals from neuron to neuron but it's not entirely clearly if that's equivalent to a CPU cycle or a network connection. Probably more like the latter as it seems each neuron has a form of local storage and programming of what to do. Like if you're looking at a picture and trying to determine if it's a cat people can reliably do that in half a second or 50 cycles which indicates quite a lot more processing per cycle and the neuron firing is more of a sub-result of a distributed process. So there's a lot more brain, though it runs much slower.
  
  --
  Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
8. Re: Boring. by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-17 05:13 · Score: 0
  
  Well, thanks for making the world a better place by making your comments invisible (except when I'm moderating, anyway).
  Hey, why so sensitive? IT WAS A JOKE!!
  Oh, right. Sorry. My mistake. Humor ruins everything.
9. Re:Boring. by xSauronx · 2015-07-17 05:21 · Score: 1
  
  personally, i make a habit of blaming developers
  
  --
  By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth. -- George Carlin
10. Re: Boring. by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2015-07-17 05:26 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Why build neural networks when you can get the wild-type ones to do the same work in exchange for 'mod points'? Markedly more cost effective.
11. Re: Boring. by Bengie · 2015-07-17 05:37 · Score: 1
  
  My very layman understanding of the brain is because of the way the synapses interact, they also act as part of the processing. You may think of the brain as an ASIC special purpose CPU, but which ASIC that is used is determined by the input. As input triggers a neuron to do something, that neuron may trigger several other neurons in different orders, timings, and strengths. Each of these many combinations causes a cascade of triggering other such neurons in the same way. After only "50 cycles", a cat is identified. Millions of neurons and billions of synapses may have been used during this time.
  
  Using the same neurons in different timings and strengths results in different answers. It's like a hybrid of CPUs, memory, and routing. I was also under the impression that neurons use a hybrid of analog and digital processing, and even a possibility of quantum.
  
  Because which input synapses and the signal strength of those synapses affect how the neuron sends data to the output synapses, you could say the neurons also have routing inside of themselves.
  
  Pretend you have a neuron with 2500 input and 2500 output synapses. Lets assume each synapse has some 8 states it can be in. Not sure if it's even remotely close, but lets go with it. The neuron can have 8^2500 different inputs resulting in a probably constant-time O(1) result in output. That one neuron. If a single neutron can translate an 8^2500 number of inputs into a useful output of a partial amount of data processed, it doesn't take too many iterations to process data.
12. Re: Boring. by rubycodez · 2015-07-17 05:49 · Score: 1
  
  Synapse is NOT like a transistor, it is a schmitt-trigger circuit with hysteresis. Multiply your transistor count by order of magnitude or more per neuron
13. Re: Boring. by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2015-07-17 05:56 · Score: 2
  
  It certainly doesn't make the task compact or cheap(and appears to make it much harder to directly duplicate with either transistors or the inspired-by-but-not-models-of version of 'neurons' that 'neural network' usually implies in the context of computers); but the one nice thing about the very low 'clock rate' of the brain is that it suggests that however it does what it does; it can tolerate suffering fairly high latency per unit of distance between elements.
  
  If you can tolerate latency, you at least have the option of buying more racks to compensate for what you can't achieve with available miniaturization and integration. If you can't, you run into relatively painful constraints on size. At the speed of light your hypothetical 3GHz processor is going to be waiting ~10clocks/meter for anything it needs from elsewhere in the system; and any practically available arrangement is going to be slower than that. If the brain were dependent on low latency, inability to replicate its density would(at best) mean being limited to replicating it slower than real time, possibly much slower. If it is relatively tolerant, replicating it at lower density might be horrifically expensive; but at least potentially doable with the ability to fabricate only rather small chunks of very high density.
14. Re: Boring. by oh_my_080980980 · 2015-07-17 06:15 · Score: 1
  
  Please stop. The rate of synapses firing is not equivalent to a CPU frequency. I love when people outside their depth like to make comments....
15. Re: Boring. by oh_my_080980980 · 2015-07-17 06:19 · Score: 1
  
  The neuron does not send data. Signal strength is incorrect, you are looking at activity. Stop trying to compare the two. It really doesn't work.
16. Re: Boring. by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-17 07:46 · Score: 0
  
  I know - the transistor count should have enabled us to build neural nets to filter out inane AC comments by now. Hardly. The brain has...
  
  Your whole post is a non sequitur, because the one you're replying to said nothing of trying to duplicate a brain. Neural networks are already in use for various purposes, and in no way imply they have anywhere near the same complexity as the whole human brain. Sometimes, they can perform tasks otherwise assumed to be complicated, and end up right more often than wrong with far, far less complexity than a human brain, or even modern processor.
17. Re: Boring. by peragrin · 2015-07-17 07:56 · Score: 1
  
  Even better the brain is 3d where chips are two 2d flat landers.
  
  --
  i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
18. Re:Boring. by jones_supa · 2015-07-17 07:58 · Score: 1
  
  When I think about how much faster (at a hardware level) my current computer is relative to my old 486SX 33MHz, and how I still have to spend time waiting for the damn thing to catch up to what I'm trying to do, I just have to shake my head.
  Part of the blame goes to slow mechanical hard disks, though.
19. Re: Boring. by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-17 09:51 · Score: -1
  
  Except in Republicans, where they act as diodes.
20. Re: Boring. by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-17 09:55 · Score: 0
  
  You are correct. The brain is like a hard drive and rate of firing of synapses is more analogous to rotation speed.
21. Re: Boring. by cheesybagel · 2015-07-17 15:35 · Score: 1
  
  Of course it runs much slower. With the kind of density the brain has if you increased the clockspeed a lot you couldn't even cool down the brain properly.
22. Re: Boring. by rubycodez · 2015-07-20 03:06 · Score: 1
  
  Actually in a GOP politician they function as a biode (e.g. length of wire)
The Valley will never be the same... by ketso · 2015-07-17 03:58 · Score: 4, Funny

Hi there, young entrepreneur! Welcome to the Indium Gallium Arsenide Valley! :)
1. Re:The Valley will never be the same... by ArcadeMan · 2015-07-17 04:10 · Score: 1
  
  http://www.jobapplicationform....
  
  --
  Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
2. Re:The Valley will never be the same... by bkmoore · 2015-07-17 09:15 · Score: 2
  
  Dang... and I was stuck in Vacuum Tube and Relay valley.
It's not worth it any more by avandesande · 2015-07-17 04:07 · Score: 4, Insightful

Look at Intel's recent earning and revenues. Business is so bad it doesn't justify investing money in a new engineering shrink.

--
love is just extroverted narcissism
1. Re:It's not worth it any more by tomhath · 2015-07-17 04:09 · Score: 1
  
  The real money is in low power processors that are fast enough (like ARM) rather than big expensive processors that are running at about 1% of capacity.
2. Re:It's not worth it any more by ArcadeMan · 2015-07-17 04:12 · Score: 1
  
  Why? Do engineers have less behavior and mental processes problems these days?
  
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  Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
3. Re:It's not worth it any more by avandesande · 2015-07-17 04:22 · Score: 1
  
  They are going to need one when Intel lays them of ;-)
  
  --
  love is just extroverted narcissism
4. Re:It's not worth it any more by CastrTroy · 2015-07-17 04:36 · Score: 2
  
  Also, I'm pretty sure that AMD is still at 28 nm, so there really isn't much point in pushing hard for 10 nm, when the competition still uses a process that's twice as big as what you already have.
  
  --
  
  Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
5. Re:It's not worth it any more by Marginal+Coward · 2015-07-17 04:47 · Score: 1
  
  Maybe you and the GP are both right. It looks like they think spending money on architecture will yield more bang-for-the-buck of performance at the moment than yet another geometry shrink. You'd think they would have played all the architectural games possible by now. Bu now that everybody already has more cores than they can use, maybe more can be done at the architecture level to make better use of the same number of cores. (Just a guess.)
6. Re:It's not worth it any more by Bengie · 2015-07-17 05:09 · Score: 1
  
  Depends on your work load. If you spend a lot of time idle, a slower simpler CPU can save more power, but you still have the fixed waste electricity per power supply. Some work loads are more efficient if you have a single large server with strong CPUs and use virtualization to increase density.
  
  Even in the situation of many-core CPUs with lots of simple cores, many cores do no scale well for most work loads. If your workload has lots of random memory access, a multi-core large CPU can save more power.
7. Re:It's not worth it any more by Bengie · 2015-07-17 05:15 · Score: 1
  
  CPUs are two dimensional, 28nm is 4x as large as 14nm.
8. Re:It's not worth it any more by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-17 05:21 · Score: 1
  
  This is the thought I had. Intel has enough of a lead at this point to skip a die shrink. Samsung just got their 14 nm Exynos SOC out a couple months ago. The fabs AMD uses are far behind. And that's about it for fab competition.
  Microarchitecture is more important anyhow. When AMD made big gains against Intel with K8 (Athlon 64/X2) it wasn't feature size that did it; Intel had competitive fab tech at the time. The difference was microarchitecture. And today Intel is ahead in that dimension as well.
  They can afford to stay on 14nm for now.
9. Re:It's not worth it any more by avandesande · 2015-07-17 05:52 · Score: 1
  
  Manufacturers make very little money on low power processors as well. The semiconductor industry has been dog-eat-dog low margin business for a very long time and it looks like Intel's ability to make abnormal profits has come to an end.
  
  --
  love is just extroverted narcissism
10. Re:It's not worth it any more by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2015-07-17 06:04 · Score: 1
  
  I'm sure that that's true on total sale, less sure that it's true on profit(you obviously drop out of the 'buy license from ARM, tell TMSC to make it, attempt to sell it' business if you can't at least keep the lights on; but I suspect that Allwinner and Mediatek aren't exactly commanding Xeon margins); but either way Intel has less pressure on the high end. If you do need a relatively powerful processor you options are pretty much 'Intel', a substantial chunk of dead space, 'maybe AMD', then another chunk of dead space, and then one of the 64-bit ARM people.
  
  That isn't really so scary. On the low end, though, they have plenty of alternatives; some quite possibly overtly superior and definitely plenty that are cheaper. That is more scary.
11. Re:It's not worth it any more by Junta · 2015-07-17 06:52 · Score: 1
  
  Intel has had a process lead, but that's not the only reason they make abnormal margins.
  - Lock in. AMD's the only viable x86 vendor and they've been off in the weeds after their glory days that culminated in x86-64 and NUMA x86 architecture
  -Ecosystem. Intel invests heavily in things like compilers and standard libraries and so forth. They pay to have good software developers enrich an ecosystem that favors their processors
  -Microarchitecture. They frankly have very good hardware engineers.
  ARM came to prevail because Intel took their eye off the ball in the low power space. Recent Atom family designs have made a strong showing in that space (in part due to software developers creating remarkable ARM emulation, in part due to excellent hardware design, and in part due to the business call to compete at more typical (for the market) margin). The 'ARMs sip power' reality was (unreasonably) extrapolated to "they'd kick ass in the datacenter", but now studies are being done and the ARM server designs are losing both on raw performance and performance per watt to the Intel offering (e.g. one done by CERN did open power 8 v. aarch64 v. two x86 variants (atom and xeon e3) and the x86 variants won most everything (except POWER did SMT better than most, but even that fell apart most of the time).
  
  --
  XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
12. Re:It's not worth it any more by KingMotley · 2015-07-17 07:21 · Score: 2
  
  I definitely do not have more cores than I can use. Intel just needs to get off their butt and start shipping processors that measure cores in multiples of dozens.
13. Re:It's not worth it any more by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-17 07:48 · Score: 0
  
  CPUs are two dimensional,
  
  But the word "big" isn't inherently 1D or 2D and you have to go from context which is being used. Saying it is 4 times bigger is no more right than saying it is twice as big, without any more context.
14. Re: It's not worth it any more by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-17 07:56 · Score: 0
  
  That figure is only one dimension. It's the width of a transistor gate, not the length or size of any other part.
15. Re:It's not worth it any more by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-17 09:41 · Score: 1
  
  They already ship them for quite some time. Look up Xeon Phi. 60 cores per die and 4x HT making it 260 or so execution threads.
16. Re:It's not worth it any more by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-17 10:48 · Score: 0
  
  Can't wait for a x86_64 with a TDP of 1 watt on the latest manufacturing process!
Toxic metals and metalloids by bluefoxlucid · 2015-07-17 04:09 · Score: 1

Silicon-on-Silicon CMOS: non-toxic.
SOD-CMOS: non-toxic.
Indium-Gallium-Arsenide: toxic heavy metals combined with toxic metalloids. Holy fuck. If ROHS doesn't lift their ban on lead after this, they've got their heads up their asses. Mercury is a little worse.

--
Support my political activism on Patreon.
1. Re:Toxic metals and metalloids by ArchieBunker · 2015-07-17 04:17 · Score: 2
  
  Sodium and Chlorine being dumped on our roads when it snows? The horror.
  
  --
  Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
2. Re:Toxic metals and metalloids by bluefoxlucid · 2015-07-17 04:40 · Score: 1
  
  Ionic compound. Sodium chloride also doesn't use shit like Arsenide in production. Indium Gallium Arsenide is an alloy, like pewter (92% tin, 8% lead).
  
  --
  Support my political activism on Patreon.
3. Re:Toxic metals and metalloids by Marginal+Coward · 2015-07-17 04:43 · Score: 2
  
  Not to mention dihydrogen monoxide - which is still used in large quantities in many residential and commercial settings, despite its many dangers.
4. Re:Toxic metals and metalloids by ArcadeMan · 2015-07-17 04:56 · Score: 1
  
  Oh shit, I think my coffee actual has dihydrogen monoxide in it!
  I better drink another cup, just to be sure!
  
  --
  Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
5. Re:Toxic metals and metalloids by pla · 2015-07-17 05:00 · Score: 1
  
  Indium-Gallium-Arsenide: toxic heavy metals combined with toxic metalloids. Holy fuck.
  
  Feel free to "dispose" of all the indium and gallium you want by sending it to me! As for the arsenic, easily removed.
  
  Moving to InGaAs will make "scrap" chips practically a form of bullion storage.
6. Re:Toxic metals and metalloids by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-17 05:49 · Score: 0
  
  As long as the metals are recovered in a responsible way and the arsenic isn't disposed of improperly, that is true. I think the fear though is very poor people picking this stuff out of the trash and trying to refine it on their own. While I do want there to be work for desperately poor people, it isn't worth them or their children getting poisoned.
7. Re:Toxic metals and metalloids by ceoyoyo · 2015-07-17 05:52 · Score: 1
  
  Actually, that is horrible. There's a reason conquering armies used to literally salt the earth if they really hated you. Plus it eats cars.
8. Re:Toxic metals and metalloids by Marginal+Coward · 2015-07-17 05:58 · Score: 1
  
  It also contains a chemical that is toxic to birds, dogs, and cats. Do you really think you should be drinking that...?
9. Re:Toxic metals and metalloids by Moof123 · 2015-07-17 06:16 · Score: 1
  
  Don't joke around, Hydrogen is very flammable!
  Oxygen is a known oxidizer, so be sure to eat lots of antioxidant's when living or working around sources of oxygen.
  All joking aside, Gallium-Arsenide as a compound is not all that dangerous. I wouldn't go eating it, but I have handled it many times and it does not require any special safety procedures. You already have GaAs parts inside of almost every cell phone. Virtually all output amplifiers to date are GaAs, with a minority of the low end phones using CMOS power amplifiers.
10. Re:Toxic metals and metalloids by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2015-07-17 06:32 · Score: 2
  
  Given that LEDs already lean pretty enthusiastically on those elements, without too much comment; and some of the stuff they bake into the silicon is pretty dreadful I imagine that they'll diplomatically ignore the issue and hope really hard that the Indium content is high enough to make the semiconductors that aren't super small and embedded in epoxy economically recyclable.
  
  Getting changes made when there are at least partial alternatives and the material is distributed in substantial quantities throughout the entire product is much less of an uphill fight than getting changes made to the relatively small chunks of the product where much of the value and the profit are; and the producers say they've exhausted the options. They would probably be loathe to push it unless their position were markedly stronger than it appears.
11. Re:Toxic metals and metalloids by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-17 13:08 · Score: 0
  
  its not an alloy like pewter at sll. InGaAs is a semiconductor - the atoms live in a crystal lattice, not a metallic soup
12. Re:Toxic metals and metalloids by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-17 13:17 · Score: 0
  
  It also contains a chemical that is toxic to birds, dogs, and cats [wikipedia.org]. Do you really think you should be drinking that...?
  Am I a bird, dog or cat? Hmm, nope.
  I guess I'm all good then.
13. Re:Toxic metals and metalloids by iggymanz · 2015-07-17 13:38 · Score: 1
  
  CMOS non-toxic? p type is boron doped, n type is either arsenic or phosphorous doped.
14. Re:Toxic metals and metalloids by bluefoxlucid · 2015-07-20 00:41 · Score: 1
  
  A quick Wikipedia
  
  Elemental boron, boron oxide, boric acid, borates, and many organoboron compounds are nontoxic to humans and animals (with toxicity similar to that of table salt)
  Phosphorus I'll just claim is an essential mineral for life, which is why we put trisodium phosphate in cereal (although if you eat four boxes of it at once, you start nearing the toxicity threshold).
  
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  Support my political activism on Patreon.
15. Re:Toxic metals and metalloids by StikyPad · 2015-07-20 08:38 · Score: 1
  
  Look, Mitt Romney, I know you think corporations are people, but birds, dogs, and cats are not people either. Now go make me some coffee!
  
  --
  https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Leap Seconds, Years by saintory · 2015-07-17 04:11 · Score: 0

We did have a leap second this year, and next year is a leap year, so there's really nothing to see here.
Intel Marketing slogan by DougOtto · 2015-07-17 04:15 · Score: 4, Funny

This just in from Intel Markteting:

"Vee have vays of making you tock!"

--
Solving Unix problems since 1989...
1. Re:Intel Marketing slogan by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2015-07-17 06:33 · Score: 1
  
  But it (used to be) AMD who has zee German fabs!
2. Re:Intel Marketing slogan by Squatting_Dog · 2015-07-18 03:33 · Score: 1
  
  *sigh*
Every Canadian needs to sign this petition by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-17 04:17 · Score: -1

https://killc51.ca/
Won't somebody think of the children! by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-17 04:17 · Score: -1

Making cpu chips out of GaAs is beyond irresponsible. Think of all those children that will get Aresenic poisoning after swallowing intels latest chips.
shame on you intel
1. Re: Won't somebody think of the children! by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-17 04:21 · Score: 0
  
  wtf
2. Re:Won't somebody think of the children! by SuperKendall · 2015-07-17 05:10 · Score: 1
  
  I *knew* I shouldn't have partnered with Intel on my line of computer-chip lollipops!
  
  --
  "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Not Mojokid by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-17 04:23 · Score: 0

Woah.. a computer technology article not submitted by Mojokid.. Shocking..
i play my penis like a flute by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-17 04:25 · Score: -1

toot toot!
They're adding a tock, not skipping a tick by kronix2 · 2015-07-17 05:56 · Score: 1

" The planned 14nm Kaby Lake processor marks the first time Intel has skipped the "tick" of a die shrink on its regular "tick/tock" cycle."

They've not skipped anything - they're adding a second 14nm tock and delaying the Cannonlake 10nm "tick" by almost a year, in the same way they delayed the Broadwell 14nm "tick" by a year and filled in the gap with 22nm Haswell Refresh.

Given they've not called it Skylake Refresh, we can only assume Intel plan a more substantial change in architecture compared to the clock bumps and voltage regulation improvements we saw in Haswell Refresh.
1. Re:They're adding a tock, not skipping a tick by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-17 11:23 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Broadwell was delayed by a quarter due to defects, not a year. 3 months is a mere glitch in the usual 12 to 18 months between Ticks and Tocks. This new delay pushes a regular part of the cycle out a year or more to when we'd expect another "Tick" -- effectively skipping that part of the cycle entirely.
  If one were to say that they're "Adding a new tick, not skipping a tock", then we'd expect the usual shrink every 24 to 36 months with 2 architecture improvements instead of 1 in-between the shrinks.
  As an analogy: If your employer gives you a $500 bonus on even months and a $20 Subway Gift Card on odd months, and then tells you that your usual expected $500 for August will instead be replaced with another $20 gift card, but that the $500 bonuses will resume in September and the alternating cycle will likely begin again, your company effectively skipped giving you a bonus. Your income for that year will be $500 less ($480 if you count the additional gift card as income).
  If instead, your employer who regularly gives you $500 bonuses and $20 gift cards on alternate months decided to give you an additional gift card one month between regular $500 bonuses, THEN you could say that they ADDED a gift card. (or a tock in this analogy).
  We're not talking semantics. The tick/tock is all about producing something on a regular schedule. You know, like clockwork. A die shrink is overdue and it's being replaced with an architecture change. The die shrink was planned at this time, and now is not. It has been skipped, so we go to the next part of the cycle which is an architecture change.
  Skipping half a cycle and adding an additional part of the cycle only look the same if one takes out the time factor. It's the frequency that matters. You admit to this part of the cycle being "pushed out a year" (or more) when half a cycle length is roughly a year to year and a half. If you look at the frequency of releases as a wave with Tick as peak and Tock as trough, the wave function has skipped a peak and flat-lined at a trough to begin again. On a heart monitor, this would look exactly like skipping a beat.
Tomatoes by Overzeetop · 2015-07-17 06:06 · Score: 1

You say ta-may-toh, I say ta-mah-toh (they say, "holy-fuck-this-die-shrink-is-a-bitch")

--
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Stagnation as far as the eye can see by Moof123 · 2015-07-17 06:08 · Score: 1, Interesting

I am not sure why there is anything more on wasted on desktop processors given the last 6-7 years of only ~10 percent gains? We are expecting almost zero improvement in desktop performance with Skylake over the 4790K processors, and barely a power reduction. Billions were spent to get us almost nothing tangible.
Laptop machines have come a long way, but the desktop is stuck at 4 cores and no hint at anything but maybe 10% performance gains per year for the foreseeable future.
We are instead getting integrated crappy GPU's in flagship processors that will mostly never get utilized, and that crappy GPU is half the die area. I'd rather have the same die size with 6-8 cores, or more L2 cache, or almost anything else that I might actually make use of. Sadly, intel reserves those kinds of features for their much more expensive Xeon or "Extreme" branded lines.
1. Re:Stagnation as far as the eye can see by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-17 07:20 · Score: 0
  
  Performance gains 10% over 6 years? They're waaay higher. 10-15% per tick maybe.
  Why is this modded up?
2. Re:Stagnation as far as the eye can see by Moof123 · 2015-07-17 07:43 · Score: 1
  
  Meant to say 10% per year, my bad.
3. Re:Stagnation as far as the eye can see by Megol · 2015-07-17 07:53 · Score: 1
  
  So why don't you buy an Xeon then? Instead of complaining that one product segment (which isn't designed for your unusual requirements) doesn't have the features you want?
  And both power levels and performance per power have improved strongly the latest generations so I don't know why you are complaining - if you were right you could just continue running your old machine instead of upgrading so...
4. Re:Stagnation as far as the eye can see by Carewolf · 2015-07-17 08:06 · Score: 1
  
  Performance gains 10% over 6 years? They're waaay higher. 10-15% per tick maybe.
  Why is this modded up?
  The fastest Intel CPUs currently on the market are two years old. Current trend for the last few years is 0% per year, with no gains at all in the latest generation, but there were big improvements before that but mostly with Sandy Bridge, but that is close to being 5-6 years ago now.
5. Re:Stagnation as far as the eye can see by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-17 09:06 · Score: 1
  
  >So why don't you buy an Xeon then?
  The markup on those things is absolutely absurd since Intel has no real competition at the moment.
6. Re:Stagnation as far as the eye can see by Moof123 · 2015-07-17 11:56 · Score: 2
  
  Equivalent Xeon's get roughly a 2x multiplier for cost, as do the motherboards for them. My work machine is a 6 core Xeon (E5-1650 v2) that can be bought for about $650 compared to about $330 for an i7-4790k, which is also what is roughly expected for the i7-6700k when it arrives with its piddly little 4 cores sitting next to a vast wasteland of third rate GPU.
  So either I would like a cheaper i7 without an on-die GPU, or more cores and cache in an i7 in place of the GPU.
  With AMD continuing to gasp for life, I think it is fair to ask questions about what the hell the dominant monopoly in town is doing and why they seem to be stalled out. I am not in favor of breaking them up, but it is appropriate to scrutinize and control the pricing and behavior of companies that are in a monopoly position.
  Performance per watt is wonderful and all, but we have had a lot of years where only the denominator has made significant improvements while clock speed and throughput per cycle are excruciatingly stagnant. I am complaining because I want a faster fricking machine, and it appears that Intel has either by willfulness or ineptitude has failed to deliver better speed in a any meaningful way in the last several years.
7. Re:Stagnation as far as the eye can see by thegarbz · 2015-07-17 14:13 · Score: 2
  
  We are instead getting integrated crappy GPU's in flagship processors that will mostly never get utilized
  Actually I think you'll find Intel is the number one graphics vendor in the world. The number of business machines with dedicated video card sits so close to zero that it disappears in a rounding error. They are also the largest market for computers in the world. That's not even taking into account low end laptops, sometimes high end laptops, tablets, and most low-power devices on the market.
  Better on-board / integrated graphics processors have been sought after for a long time. You won't run Crysis on it, but then very few people have the desire to.
Intel is behind by erice · 2015-07-17 07:00 · Score: 4, Interesting

Intel is stalling at 14nm. Everyone else stalled at 28nm. 28nm is still the cheapest node in per transistor terms. Since most chip makers are driven by cost rather than transistor performance, there have been few takers for 20nm and 14nm.
1. Re:Intel is behind by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-17 09:55 · Score: 0
  
  Posting AC since I just modded...
  Hopefully this will give AMD a chance to catch up. If they can pull off a good design with Zen and Intel doesn't have much of a fab advantage any more things may get interesting.
2. Re:Intel is behind by nateman1352 · 2015-07-17 18:24 · Score: 2
  
  28nm is still the cheapest node in per transistor terms.
  That's not really true anymore. 14nm is cheaper for Intel to manufacture than 22nm (but Intel is the only company thus far with a mature, cost effective node at 14nm.) Remember that all the problems Intel had with ramping 14nm to high volume every other silicon fab will also experience.
  Really what this tells us is that if you look at Intel's past two nodes (22nm and 14nm) they both have had about a 2 year, 6 month development cycle instead of the 2 year cycle we are used to. I think this is more just Intel being open with their customers and dealing with the 2.5 year cadence instead of the 2 year cadence by back-porting some of the new features that were originally going to debut in cannon lake to skylake. I think we can probably consider kaby lake to be skylake 2.0, hopefully more than devil's canyon was (actual new micro-architectural and/or chipset changes not just some new thermal compound and higher MHz.)
  Honestly I think we will all be happier to have kaby lake next year than another 2 year wait like haswell and skylake.
That's what you get with one major market player. by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-17 15:37 · Score: 0

This is why people need to buy more AMD. They're the only ones pushing Intel to do anything good for the mass market.