Slashdot Mirror
Intel Says They Aren't Abandoning 10nm Chips, Despite Report Saying They're Canceled (pcmag.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from PC Magazine: Intel is denying a new report that claims the chipmaker is abandoning its 10 nanometer manufacturing process following years of delays. "Media reports published today that Intel is ending work on the 10nm process are untrue," the company tweeted on Monday. Hours prior to the tweet, semiconductor news site SemiAccurate claimed that Intel was pulling the plug on the chip-making technology over the company's ongoing struggles to bring it to full production. Chips built with the 10nm process were originally slated to arrive in 2016, but the company has repeatedly pushed that launch date back. During Intel's last earnings call, executives said they now expect 10nm chips to officially drop during the 2019 holiday season.
In response to SemiAccurate's report, Intel said it continues to make "good progress" on the 10nm technology. "Yields are improving consistent with the timeline we shared during our last earnings report," the chipmaker added in its tweet. The next-generation silicon will supposedly offer a 25 percent performance increase over 14nm-manufactured technology. The 10nm chips will also be able to run on 50 percent less power when clocked at the same performance of a 14nm processor. Intel will hold an earnings call on Thursday, so expect company executives to elaborate on 10nm's progress then.
In response to SemiAccurate's report, Intel said it continues to make "good progress" on the 10nm technology. "Yields are improving consistent with the timeline we shared during our last earnings report," the chipmaker added in its tweet. The next-generation silicon will supposedly offer a 25 percent performance increase over 14nm-manufactured technology. The 10nm chips will also be able to run on 50 percent less power when clocked at the same performance of a 14nm processor. Intel will hold an earnings call on Thursday, so expect company executives to elaborate on 10nm's progress then.
Yes, it seems molecules migrating from one location to another represent a real problem when it comes to miniaturising electronics, once you get below a certain size (molecules mutually reinforcing their or is that your preferred location). High clock speeds and high operating temperatures also do not help.
So shorter travel distances are going to become the next big thing, computers on a chip. Less flexibility in design but the more in can pack in the closest possible space, the higher the speed without extra energy. So multiple co-processing computers on chips or silicon has to go.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
ehh. no. yea, i know you're just some bored fanboi trying to spout some clever one-liner, but you failed. miserably. just like amd continues to fail in the single threaded and single core performance metrics comparison with intel... but there's still hope you might cram a nugget or two of information in that limited brain capacity of yours, so here goes....
tsmc (who makes the chips for amd now since they kicked their former spawn, global foundries, to the curb.. who around that same time threw-in the towel for their own 7nm process) is at 7nm for some chips (gpu for amd, soon some cpu as well) and ~12-14nm for other newish amd chips. fab 18 will be online at 5nm (not 4) for production tests late next year with production possible as early as 2020 if all goes well.
Canceled some production but not all .. so I guess the report, from SemiAccurate, was only half right.
Thank you. Try the fish.
TSMC and Global Foundries are already moving to the 7nm node.
So far all Intel has managed with their 10nm process is delays. It was supposed to be out in 16 and now they are talking about holiday 19
2 stories talking about Intel, instead of 0. Result: +cancel -cancel 10nm = 0, +ad +ad = 2.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Migrant molecules invaders blamed for Intel's failure to deliver 10nm.... this crude attempt to deceive viewers on Fox 'News'. "Build a wall FAST" says Trump yet again.... "Make Intel Great Again"! MIGA!
Multiple processors on a chip long took over the supercomputer market, which tried both plans. Shrinking chips vs dividing tasks across more processors.
It's not whether Intel can make 10nm or 7nm, its whether they can keep their performance advantage as the clock speed of ARM is ramped up to compete with Intel on the desktop.
already on 4nm.
Number of fabs owned by AMD: 0.
And do you know what! There is life outside Intel!
Here is a delightful little video of me re-enacting my behavior on my last days at Intel. A real wonderful dance!
And Arthur Rosenau' love splashed down from the heavens! and made me almost completely forget Intel until I saw this article.
Thank you to the folks at SemiAccurate for the story!
Most Respectfully Yours Mark Allyn Bellingham, Washington
Plan for it now.
You generally don't just retire fab plants anyway. Just have them produce less bleeding edge parts until they stop selling.
You also don't typically repurpose existing plants. It's hard enough to get them up clean and working with decent yields without moving old stuff out and the new in.
So, Intel probably think they can make a $ or two of 10nm still, but odds are they are praying 5nm in a new plant comes in with less grief for the cutting edge stuff.
Pulling the plug on their advancement would be tantamount to calling the entire industry quits. With TSMC already shipping nigh equivalent chips and Samsung reportedly following early next year cancelling 10nm would put Intel so far behind as to be the same as giving up entirely. Considering their recent quarterly reports of giant profits, the rumor itself was fantastically stupid to begin with.
Intel is a publicly traded company and bad news like you are abandoning the hopes you pinned on a new fabrication tech would severely damage their stock price. If you recall, during the aftermath of Meltdown, Intel made it sound like AMD chips had the same issue by conflating Meltdown and Spectre issues. Oh and the patch to the Linux kernel would have slowed down AMD chips as well which was an "accident" for sure.
Intel cannot compete but they can lie and cheat with the best of them.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Oh yeah, thanks for your stupid useless opinion, you cunt.
And nice try with the "k thx bai" thing at the end. Normally that's preceded by a well-founded take-down of whatever it was said in response to, except yours wasn't. See ya, shitheel.
Intel has effectively missed it's 10nm die shrink when Samsung and TSMC are on 7nm. Intel better have 5nm in it's back pocket because it's pointless building any 10nm CPU's now (maybe other chips instead.)
These values (14 nm, 10 nm, 7 nm) are not directly comparable. These days, the values seems more like marketing numbers.
Intel does need to focus more on innovation and implementation and less on customer segmentation, though. Intel used to be so far ahead that even an inferior processor design was on par with the competition, due to the advantage in fabrication.
Actually, Intel's 10nm process results in features of almost exactly the same size as TSMC's 7nm process.
So yes, they're behind, but not by nearly as far as you think.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
SemiAccurate hasn't been worthy of its own name for over 5 years, IMHO. Releasing this rumor under the guise of news on the same day the press embargo for Coffee Lake refresh benchmarks is lifted reeks of a ham-fisted attempt at stock price manipulation. Get a life, Chuck.
Two days before AMD reports, three days before Intel reports, Semiaccurate floats this rumor with pretty much nothing to back it up. Here's the meat of their argument Note: The following is analysis for professional level subscribers only. So this is about signing up subscribers? Or an attempt at illegal stock manipulation? Both? It is certainly not about quality journalism.
I am definitely an AMD fanboy, full disclosure there. But that doesn't make me an Intel hater, at least not when they lay off the dirty tricks, which appears to pretty much the situation at the moment. So... balanced assessment: no reason to doubt Intel's revised 10nm production schedule. This is all about yields as Semiaccurate is fond of pointing out.
You can see from this that Intel's 10nm fin pitch is a bit more aggressive than TSMC's 7nm, 6% smaller. Intel's minimum metal pitch is a lot more aggressive, 22%. This is all right at the limit of what deep UV alone can do, so that might be Intel's bridge too far right there. I have a whole lot of difficultly believing that Intel did not learn enough from their aborted ramp up last spring to know exactly what they need to do to hit their yields, most probably including respinning their masks to a density nearly identical to TSMC.
Buried in there somewhere I did find one credible little nugget... Semiaccurate pointed out that last spring's 8121U Cannon Lake part, produced in limited quantities and only ever seen in the hands of a few reviewers, is specced without a GPU. Not because it doesn't have one, but because does have one but it doesn't work. I find that credible. Debugging both a processor and a GPU is much more work that just a processor or GPU alone. In contrast, AMD doesn't try to fab APUs until both the processor and GPU have been successfully fabbed separately. Excellent strategy, a big risk reduction.
Another huge thing AMD did to cut the 7nm risk was, jumping into bed with the phone industry. Intel convinced themselves it was a good idea to go it alone as usual, and were proved colossally wrong. Though I am not going to claim any special inside information, I think that Intel is going to bring up its Cannon Lake production successfully, 3 or 4 years behind schedule as they say, and that this is the end of the line for Intel as an independent fab. It's simple: the days of always being a node ahead are over, today they are half a node behind. From here on, there are no advantages to running an independent fab, only disadvantages. When Intel finally does ramp up Cannon Lake they will be in an excellent position to negotiate a new, cooperative deal with the rest of the industry, but if they persist in marching to their own drumbeat they will pay an enormous cost in market share and operating income over the next few years.
I am going to take a wild guess here: Intel plays around with EUV a bit, gets some first hand data on what horribly nasty stuff that is, then makes a deal with TSMC. Intel is going to do just fine as a pure Engineering/IP player like AMD but they risk everything by running their own vanity fab.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
The article you linked compares Intel to Global Foundries, which doesn't even have a 7nm process as of today. You're still right, but try my links
Note that Samsung also went for 36nm minimum metal pitch and for what it's worth, also seem to be behind TSMC by about the same lag as Intel. It's starting to look like TSMC went for exactly the right amount of conservative.
I think that Intel is behind by exactly as much as I think :) Translation: Intel is now behind by about a year, or half a node, whatever that is.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
They found their mole.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
Unlike TSMC which can leverage the demands from their wide range of clienteles to continually finance their progress beyond 7nm, into 5nm (and 3nm), Samsung Electronics has to report back to the Samsung HQ for things that might cost them tens, or even hundreds of billions
Their product range are mainly on memory (flash / DRAM) with a few logic chip sprinkled here and there
DRAM can't go beyond 1z nm (reportedly 15nm), and flash won't go beyond 7nm, or the cross-talk noise would be way too disabling.
Methinks we see the beginning of the end of global chip shrinking --- TSMC might be the last one still holding the torch ... unless of course, the mainland Chinese are courageously stupid enough to venture on, and on, and on, and on ....
Great job "forecasting" there grandpa, lol? Why don't you give unsolicited micro-lessons on a subject you know something about or actually work in instead? Who knows, someone might even listen slightly or care in the least. K thx bai
Somebody modded it up, and you down, sigh. OTOH, it wasn't necessary to be quite that abrasive. OTOOH, you were responding to possibly the worst post in the entire universe. The only sorrier thing I can think of is, somebody modded it up.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Intel needs to give up its fabs like AMD. Sooner or later they will. Sooner will be less painful.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
For real, semi accurate. I guess they warned us...
Intel's manufacturing process is out-dated and irrelevant, even with them over-charging customers for their CPUs for a whole decade because AMD could not compete in the top segment. Tens of billions of dollars in net profits, and they still haven't been able to reach 10nm.
What is Intel doing with all the revenue and profits? What's going on? Not sure, but if anything, these news are a good indicator it's time to sell your Intel stocks.
That's actually an advantage now.
While Intel has to pay the development cost for their new processes out of their own pockets, TSMC's development is paid for by all of their customers. AMD's 2019 products are partially funded by Apple, Qualcomm, Nvidia, etc. If AMD tried to go it alone, they'd be two process nodes behind Intel instead of about to take the lead.
They're not comparable, no. But Intel had healthy 14nm production in 2014, now they're saying late 2019 at the earliest for 10nm so five years with nothing more than enhancements. And TSMC is shipping 7nm in the iPhone Xs right now and has just announced they expect 20% of their 2019 revenue to be from their 7nm process, which is fairly equivalent to Intel's 10nm. Samsung says their 7nm is ready for production too. Basically they've lost their entire lead and is already trailing a bit, they'll be fully competitive if they can launch their 10nm but they no longer get the holy trifecta of a better manufacturing process: Lower cost, better performance and higher power efficiency.
I think the greatest danger to Intel is that Apple finds it's able to produce comparable light desktop/laptop performance on ARM, if Intel can't provide superior chips there's very little reason for Apple to stay. They've done arch changes before from Motorola -> PowerPC -> x86, they know what it's like and with the iPhone/iPad CPU/GPU design in-house you know they'll be lusting for the Mac business. If they do I expect a full volley with new MacBook, MacBook Air, iMac and Mac mini ARM models but to leave MacBook Pro / iMac Pro / Mac Pro on x86 initially. If the rumors are true there'll be a new iPad Pro out soon with a A12X processor, that'll be a good clue as to how far it's off.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Semiconductor fabs owned by Apple = fabs owned by Alphabet/(Google) = fabs owned by Huawei = fabs owned by IBM = (general purpose semiconductor) fabs owned by Sony = n
Semiconductor fabs owned by AMD = n = 0
The two big that still designs and manufactures processors are Intel and Samsung.
amd continues to fail in the single threaded and single core performance metrics comparison with intel
"Fail" is the wrong word. A bit behind would be accurate, and that is Intel's last remaining bragging point. A couple of things. Current Ryzen is still a full node behind Intel, that it manages to clobber Intel in multi-core and put in a respectable showing in single core is truly impressive. Second thing, if TSMC actually delivers on time then AMD will suddenly be a node ahead of Intel for the first time in history. Third thing, buzz has it that Zen 2 improves IPC by 13%, which will bring it roughly even in IPC with Intel, while retaining its massive lead in value.
So "fail" is the wrong word, indeed.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
I just want ECC ram available on all desktops... that is all (for now).
agreed and intel deserved every bit of problems they are having.. due to highly unethical conduct in numerous ways
NVIDIA is funding AMD? Freebasing much?
Scientia potentia est!
-Sir Francis Bacon
No, it's just you being stupid. Reread the post until you get it. No participation medal until you get what he's saying.
Uhhh I'm afraid he is right as Nvidia is getting chips made by TMSC which means their money is helping fund TMSC's process which is benefiting AMD.
And I'd say its looking more and more like AMD selling off their fabs when they did was the smart move, as they can now go with whomever has the best process while their former fabs (Global Foundry) has given up on hitting 7nm and appears to be intending to just milk whatever money they can make off their 12nm and 14nm fabs making memory chips and working for smaller players.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
you were responding to possibly the worst post in the entire universe
Is this your first day on /. ?
All I see here is fanboi vs. fanboi. Long Live 62K!
That's racist, the new rules says he has to get a trophy for showing up and then he gets another when he figures out what he responded to.
Or maybe they'll just keep bumping up the capabilities of iOS on the iPad and eventually you'll actually want to use an iPad Pro for serious work, with the 8 core processor or whatever it will have.
What's funny is that not only are customers that pay TSMC indirectly funding nodes that AMD can later use, BUT due to AMD's higher volume of demand (due to GF stopping development on their 7nm node), AMD is not a priority customer who gets better access to wafers than Nvidia.
Where are those 7nm dGPUs from Nvidia again? Oh right, there won't be any for awhile. AMD launches 7nm dGPUs in q4 2018/q1 2019. Just not for the consumer market (blargh).
I can see the Slashdot headline now: "Are Computers on a Chip a money-grabbing attempt to bypass right to repair laws?"
68k retard
They have to have the 10nm plant to maintain their 10nm penises.
Is this real or just counterintelligence to make competitors waste resources playing catch up?
Fuck you it was early and I'm not old as fuck like you.
Won't Intel also outsource some of their chipset production to TSMC?
Would Intel's money benefiting AMD as well?
Or maybe they'll just keep bumping up the capabilities of iOS on the iPad and eventually you'll actually want to use an iPad Pro for serious work, with the 8 core processor or whatever it will have.
There's not enough TDP headroom to make use of it, comparing the A10/A10X used in the current tablets it's just 50% more cores (2+2 -> 3+3) and there's probably no point in scaling up small cores further, the A12X might go from 2+4 to 4+4 but that would practically be a crippled quad-core for performance oriented tasks. Plus the iPad Pro 12.9" display is 5.5MP while a desktop/laptop today should at least support Apple's 5K displays of 15MP, so I imagine the GPU will need a big boost too so I think dedicated chips are in order. But it's absolutely possible that they'd run iOS and not macOS though, with all the lock down that'd involve. Of course /. would rage about that, but I think consumers would buy it. They're certainly buying iPhones and boot locked Android...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Of all the apps benchmarked, which ones were compiled with the Intel compiler?
No one said it would be easy.
It is no different than returning a rocket booster for reuse. They said it couldn't be done. Not easy but they found a way.
There is more to fabrication than just the size process. Though some companies do come to the chip production companies with a fully laid out internal chip design, this is very rare for tightly packed layouts. Many times the fabs work with companies to adress overheating in specific parts of the IC. One of Intel's secret sauces is how this is done. If they were to use a 3rd party fab, parts, or all of their process could be leaked to competitors.
Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon what's the difference? All steal money from devs and control with walled gardens.
Are you even old enough to be here? "62K"? Ha!
I'm thinking not, considering the fucktons of money they're pouring into their still-expanding DX-1 fab at the Ronler Acres complex in Hillsboro, Oregon (let alone, probably, the additional fabs in Chandler, AZ).
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Of all the apps benchmarked, which ones were compiled with the Intel compiler?
More to the point, modern games don't bottleneck on the CPU any more, all the heavy lifting is done on the GPU. So single core benches just don't rule the world like they used to. Now, Intel's go to strategy for cheating the benchmarks is to avoid benchmarking Vulkan/DX12 games so rendering bottlenecks on a single core, and gloss over the fact that this amounts to optimizing for obsolete game engines. Even that skulduggery isn't going to be enough to hold AMD down in 2019.
BTW, this is the main reason that AMD developed Mantle, to exploit their advantage in cores per dollar. Which advantage AMD still very much has as of Intel's 9th gen release last week, which you can't actually buy, or if you can buy them then you pay too much or they run too hot. All of these things the result of trying to shoehorn marketing's 10nm performance specs into engineering's 14nm node.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Amd actually releases chips, Intel; not so much. They've been releasing the same chip for 10 year now.
I predict that Intel will do like Howard Hughes did with the Spruce Goose. Not abandoned, no, but they will never produce any significant amount of parts at 10 nm (by Intel's own definition of 10 nm too BTW).
So officially they will have 10 nm support, but unofficially 10 nm will become an orphan within Intel. Soon Intel will begin selling the 7 nm story and 7nm will become the Future, the Best, the Only Thing Worth Talking About. You know, EUV, Electron Beam, Moore's Law, Particle Accelerators, Graphene, CNT, cold fusion, ...
Actually, Intel's 10nm process results in features of almost exactly the same size as TSMC's 7nm process.
So yes, they're behind, but not by nearly as far as you think.
Another victim of Intel FP rounding errors!