
Intel Stockpiling 10nm Chips - headalgorithm
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/04/intel-stockpiling-10nm-chips-warns-that-14nm-shortages-will-continue/
======
dsr_
Semiaccurate claims that this is entirely Intel marketing fluff, and that in
reality Intel can't get 10nm yield up to useful levels, now or ever.

(that's a tl;dr for [https://www.semiaccurate.com/2019/04/25/leaked-roadmap-
shows...](https://www.semiaccurate.com/2019/04/25/leaked-roadmap-shows-
intels-10nm-woes/) )

~~~
liuliu
My understanding is that Intel is doing OK with smaller die size 10nm (Cannon
Lake-U / Ice Lake-U) for Ultrabooks. But for bigger dies such as HEDT or
server CPUs, the Ice Lake SP is still pretty much in the air with Intel's
vague timeline of "sooner than expected end of 2020" claim.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Isn't that “Ultrabook” part the one with the broken GPU that's shipping only
in an obscure variant of a cheap Chinese education-only laptop?

~~~
shorts_theory
Yes, that's the one. Anandtech did a pretty good analysis of Cannonlake here:
[https://www.anandtech.com/show/13405/intel-10nm-cannon-
lake-...](https://www.anandtech.com/show/13405/intel-10nm-cannon-lake-and-
core-i3-8121u-deep-dive-review/)

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baybal2
Intel is very likely to miss holidays with 10nm. OEM manufacturers in South
China, are screaming murder, and even ones who were Intel shops for decades
like Weibu are jumping the ship. Intel is losing China big time.

I'd say, a lot would've been fine even if Intel gave them existing 14nm chips,
but since all 14nm capacity is gobbled by server chips, it's not gonna happen.

I believe Intel is making a huge error by prioritising big wholesale Xeon
buyers like Amazon over OEM manufacturers. Hosting providers will be back the
moment Intel regains the tech lead or finally makes 10nm Xeons, but OEMs will
walk away and not return.

~~~
dfrage
Two conflicting thoughts on that:

\- If the big wholesale Xeon buyers and users qualify AMD chips and start
buying a lot of them, Intel will find that landscape a lot more competitive,
this is a more "sticky" market than OEM products for consumers.

\- They could be betting that AMD will lose the plot again, as they've done
throughout their corporate history, e.g. after the 486, and after K8. The OEM
consumer market is less sticky and will trivially move back to Intel if they
have competitive offerings.

~~~
baybal2
My own experience tells me of things being quite opposite of this. Big hosting
providers care little for what runs in their servers for as long as it's fast
(they always can pass costs onto their clients without loosing much,
especially bigger ones)

In OEM, things are dominated by much more complex dynamics in between supply
chain, factories, and clients.

Intel had no problem with Taiwanese, as a lot of TW companies had relationship
with Intel since the "Desktop First" era, but in mainland, Intel had to fight
a bloody battle for the fresh and juicy laptop and tablet markets for the last
decade, with kickbacks, blackjack, and hookers. Their position here was never
strong to begin with.

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whatever1
The intel CPU situation is pretty embarrassing. I built back in 2009 a desktop
with the intel i7-920 @2.66GHz (the first real quad core from intel) which I
bought for less than $300. I look today and the cpu I can get for less than
$300 is a 6 core i5 9600K @3.7 GHz. According to Passmark [1], this new CPU,
is less than 2.5x faster overall, despite the additional 2 cores, and the much
higher frequency. Intel just spent 10 years designing sockets and mobos and
mocking ARM instead of concentrating on how to push the computing (mobile &
desktop) technology forward.

(1) [https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/Intel-i5-9600K-vs-
Intel...](https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/Intel-i5-9600K-vs-
Intel-i7-920/3337vs834)

~~~
adrianN
The TDP is a lot lower for the newer processor. Performance per Watt has
improved quite a bit over the last years. Given that datacenters and mobile
applications are increasingly more important than traditional "TDP doesn't
matter" desktops, I think this is a positive development.

~~~
effie
Intel changed their definition of TDP lately, so actual consumption can be
higher than TDP. So it is not trivial to compare energy consumption of last
year processors with the older ones.

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mjfl
What are Intel and other semiconductors planning to pivot to when they can no
longer reduce process size at a reasonable pace (i.e. now)? Is there a plan,
or is it an existential wall?

~~~
pault
My impression is that they know moore's gravy train is over and they're
scrambling to figure out new tricks to allow them to sell a new generation of
processors every year. Personally, while I'm a little disappointed that
processors 20 years from now might not be 4+ orders of magnitude faster than
the one I have now, I wouldn't mind being able to buy a computer and not have
to worry about upgrading it for 10 years (I think we're pretty close to this
point already).

~~~
whynotminot
> not have to worry about upgrading it for 10 years (I think we're pretty
> close to this point already

I think we're already there. Ivy Bridge machines from 2012 can still get the
job done today if paired with a solid complement of RAM and an SSD.

Graphics is really the only area where those older machines are starting to be
a limfac, as their inability to drive the latest 4K+ displays is starting to
be more of an issue for normal people.

~~~
keanebean86
My E6420 C2D from 2007 is still chugging away as a htpc. I had to go from 2 to
6GBs of ram 2 years ago but it's still plenty fast enough for video and web
use. I tossed in a HD 6420 few years ago for video hardware acceleration.

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blu42
If Intel are stockpiling 10nm parts now (Q2) so they'd have something on the
shelves for Q4 then I don't see how their 10nm facilities are in a good shape.
Furthermore, when everybody in the industry uses the 'x% yield' metrics, and
Intel is using phrases like 'improving at a faster rate than anticipated',
etc, to communicate yields, that means their proper yield metrics are far from
looking good.

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joncrane
This doesn't make sense. How much "stockpiling" is required for enough
processors for partners to validate? Surely the amount required for validation
is at least three orders of magnitude smaller than the amount you expect to
sell once they're released.

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tedunangst
Stockpiling chips so partners can test them later? If the point is to validate
designs, wouldn't you want to do the testing before the stockpiling?

~~~
mbell
It's not so the partner can test/validate the cpu, it's so the partners can
test/validate their designs using the cpu. i.e. It's hard to test/validate a
laptop design if no CPUs exist that work with it.

~~~
colejohnson66
But why build a laptop with that CPU if there’s none of it available?

~~~
JohnFen
They would be betting that by the time they're ready to go to market, the CPUs
to support it will exist.

