
Intel Kills “Tick-Tock” - Deinos
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/03/22/intel-corp-officially-kills-tick-tock.aspx
======
ricw
Main take away: Intel is doing three phases instead of two tick-tocks.

Secondary take away: due to the increased time to move to a better
manufacturing process, Intel will likely not have as much a competitive
advantage anymore. Though the number of competitors will (and has already)
decrease due to the high investments.

Would be interesting to see how long intel estimates the process cycles are
going to be, i.e. how Moore's law will progress.

Weird statement in the article: "it (TSCMs 7nm tech) should be very similar in
terms of transistor density to Intel's 10-nanometer technology". This makes no
sense as it would be comparing apples and pears. Surely they are referring to
TSCMs 10nm tech?!

~~~
ghaff
>Weird statement in the article

At this point, process nodes don't map to a particularly well-defined set of
feature sizes across vendors. So what I assume they're saying is that what
Intel calls 10nm is actually pretty similar in terms of transistor
size/density to what TSMC is calling 7nm. (No idea if that's actually true but
it's what I believe is being said.)

~~~
phkahler
I've been wondering if EUV will bring things back in line. They say the light
sources are not bright enough yet, but isn't doing a 2-4x exposure better than
double or triple pattering? If the total time were the same you'd still have
the benefit of the shorter wavelength allowing dramatically smaller features.
What am I missing?

~~~
Armisael16
It isn't 25% as bright as it needs to be - it's more like 1% or 0.1%. The
total time isn't the same.

~~~
Pietertje
That is not true at all, wafer throughput is a factor 4-5 less... The mistake
in the first comment is that with self aligned double patterning you only need
one litho step, not two. The same applies for SQDP. And since litho is one of
the most expensive steps double patterning is more cost effective.

From a technology point of view the problem with EUV is more the line edge
roughness, line width roughness, defects and the reliability... Given, more
light will make the job easier

------
beloch
Fun fact: The distance between silicon atoms in a crystal is on the order of
0.2 to 0.5 nm. The 10 nm process is therefore operating on the order of _tens_
of atoms. That's just nuts. Quantum effects must really complicate things at
this scale!

~~~
devindotcom
Yeah, I've been looking forward to how they'll go past 10nm for years! Crazy
to think how much control they have in the manufacturing process.

~~~
gozur88
Aren't they planning to go to 7? I thought I read that somewhere.

~~~
otterley
It was in the article; TSMC expects it to go into production by 2018.

~~~
gozur88
Yes, but is Intel?

~~~
williadc
Yes it will. [http://www.pcworld.com/article/2887275/intel-moores-law-
will...](http://www.pcworld.com/article/2887275/intel-moores-law-will-
continue-through-7nm-chips.html)

------
unchocked
So now it's "Tick-Tock-Tweak".

~~~
maaku
Some PR person at Intel is kicking themselves now.

~~~
acqq
Not necessarily, maybe they know it's time not to give the "tick" expectations
anymore. They can be very soon away, and from their perspective, it's time to
be identified with other aspects, not with "ticks."

------
avs733
translation: this transition has been inevitable since we discovered that
immersion lithography is a bear, the deposition processes to support atomic
layer deposition are a bitch, copper has issues being anorexic, our fabs are
so sensitive that they are effected by nearby farms, and EUV litho is a piper
dream (in a vacuum).

Not to judge, they make things that are mere atoms in size...but the corollary
to Moore's law should always have been EY's law: The cost of each major change
in semiconductor production methods doubles

~~~
gnu8
Can you elaborate on how nearby farms have affected microchip fabs? Something
to do with airborn organics from their animals or chemicals?

~~~
atonse
My guess would be more vibrations?

Heavy equipment causes vibrations in the ground, which most people probably
can't notice, but when you're literally printing at the atomic scale,
microscopic vibrations probably make a difference.

~~~
kale
I work in a lab. We can't use our most accurate scales when there's
construction going on with heavy machinery within a couple of blocks. This
isn't cutting-edge stuff either, it's measuring to 0.001 gram, with a $10k
scale and a 4" thick granite table on rubber pads (unlike other equipment
that's on air floating supports with active counter balancing).

~~~
atonse
That's so interesting, thanks for sharing!

------
arielweisberg
I've been really disappointed in Intel's desktop offerings. At the 300$ high
end (quad core i7) desktop price point we have been at 4 cores for years. I
would really like an option for more slower cores at that price point.

I guess I kind of get why. Might be a socket compatibility and cost issue, the
allocation of die space to a GPU, but it would nice to see some movement. Also
probably zero demand outside of software developers, but I have to wonder if
it is kind of chicken and egg problem.

It's actually kind of funny if I recall on desktops more of the die is GPU
than CPU.

~~~
deelowe
Large core counts are the bread and butter of enterprise/cloud. I suspect
Intel is binning those chips for their real customers (not desktop users).
Probably has to do with wafer yields or something if I can hazard a guess.

~~~
sliverstorm
By now they probably have the yields. I'd guess it's just market segmentation.
Harder to convince your server customers to fork out $4k for a 16-core chip
when you're selling 16-core chips into desktops for $300.

~~~
deelowe
Actually, I suspect you're right. I was being a bit generous with my
characterization. :-) Maintaining the status quo allows Intel to add
significant margin to their enterprise solutions.

------
carsongross
People still haven't completely worked through the fact that Moore's Law has
died. I think the anger phase was the late 2000's, when quantum computing,
etc. was trotted out to denounce anyone noticing the slowdown.

This looks like bargaining to me.

~~~
notzorbo3
Nah, you're not taking in account Moore's Meta Law:

"Whenever Moore's law is no longer applicable, its definition is changed to
accommodate some new version of 'computers get faster'."

Moore's Law was dead a long long time ago.

~~~
carsongross
Completely agree on both counts. There are seven stages of grief, so these
things take time.

~~~
Tossrock
Classically there are 5 (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance)

~~~
neolefty
That's the old version. Intel added two phases.

------
npunt
They should call this tick-tock-tack, since the last stage is when they tack
and introduce new architecture. You heard it here first.

------
mrb
This turn of events was evident as of 2 months ago. I wrote: _" Intel's Tick-
Tock is no more. Say hello to Tick-Tock-Tock."_

[https://plus.google.com/+MarcBevand/posts/ZpuSkXqaBfK](https://plus.google.com/+MarcBevand/posts/ZpuSkXqaBfK)

------
Reason077
So Intel's "Ticks" weren't quite keeping up with the "Tocks".

------
coverband
Would it be fair to say ...

... they're switching to Tic-Tac-Toe?

(Thank you, don't forget to tip your waitress) ;-)

~~~
znpy
This is actually a nice joke.

