
Intel kills off the 10nm process? - douglasfshearer
https://semiaccurate.com/2018/10/22/intel-kills-off-the-10nm-process/
======
eksu
@intelnews
[https://twitter.com/intelnews/status/1054397715071651841](https://twitter.com/intelnews/status/1054397715071651841)
“Media reports published today that Intel is ending work on the 10nm process
are untrue. We are making good progress on 10nm. Yields are improving
consistent with the timeline we shared during our last earnings report.”

~~~
jamiek88
Charlie at semimaccurate has many, many items broken uncomfortable news about
intel and others that has later been proven fully rather than ‘semi accurate’.

I know for me he has earned trust so to see this official denial has left me
conflicted.

~~~
dragontamer
Unfortunately... the full details are likely behind the paywall. Charlie is
usually "fully correct" behind a paywall, but the "teasers" are less accurate
and may have a bit of hype or hypotheticals in them.

Which is fine: I realize he writes like that so that he can get paid. But
still, it means you have to take the rumors he hands out "for free" with a
grain of salt.

Chances are: "10nm is cancelled" is closer to "some version of 10nm has been
cancelled: Intel may be making progress on EUV or some other technology which
they will THEN call 10nm in the future." But those details are what matters
with regards to Intel's Ice Lake release plans, as well as AMD's plan for Zen2
/ EPYC Rome in the upcoming years.

~~~
phyller
Intel can call a tweaked 14nm "10nm" and probably will. Those designations are
just marketing now. The real issues are: Will there be an even greater delay
before a significant process improvement, including higher density, lower
power consumption, and higher clocks? (Greater than single digit percentage
point tweaks) Were billions of dollars of investment largely wasted? Will it
require even more investment to get the next node out?

By the way, even if it means more delays and more money, it could still be an
improvement for Intel if their previous path wasn't working well. But they
would be motivated to hide it anyway because they would have hidden all the
wasted time and money up to this point and wouldn't want to have to own all
that.

------
dracodoc
Read with this Oct.18 news together:

Intel Split Technology and Manufacturing Into 3 Divisions [https://www.game-
debate.com/news/25940/intel-split-technolog...](https://www.game-
debate.com/news/25940/intel-split-technology-and-manufacturing-
into-3-divisions-amid-crisis-in-manufacturing)

As of this week, Intel has announced it’s splitting its manufacturing group
into three distinct segments in a massive shake-up aimed at bolstering its
development.

The move is tied into the departure of long-time senior VP Sohail Ahmed, who’s
been with Intel for 34 years and is currently the head of technology and
manufacturing at Intel. Ahmed will be moving on shortly, and Intel will be
using this moment to restructure its business.

~~~
y-c-o-m-b
I dreaded these types of restructurings when I was at Intel. It was
interesting watching morale plummet while on the surface everyone was
optimistic and in denial about the state of the business regressing. Deep down
though people just couldn't shake the feeling that large layoffs were on the
horizon and sure enough they came.

~~~
pertymcpert
When were you there?

------
bitL
If this is true, then we will likely see MacBooks with 7nm A12+ in 2019 or
2020. They might surpass Intel on raw performance if TSMC's 7nm process is
good (and Apple paid a lot of its R&D costs).

~~~
make3
aren't the A series ARM chips? Windows has had quite a bit of difficulty
getting regular desktop stuff to work on ARM (x86 emulation is slow)

~~~
flohofwoe
I bet that Apple won't rely that much on emulation this time (like back when
switching from PPC to x86), instead either require app-store apps to be
uploaded as LLVM bitcode, or upload fat-binaries with ARM _and_ x86 machine
code (NextStep aka OSX did this already a quarter century ago), or maybe even
statically translate x86 machine code to ARM on the app store "server side".

Most command line code installed through homebrew is compiled on the user
machine anyway, which leaves the closed-source and legacy UI applications not
distributed through the app store (but by the time Macs switch to ARM, OSX
probably will forbid to run those anyway).

~~~
masklinn
> I bet that Apple won't rely that much on emulation this time (like back when
> switching from PPC to x86), instead either require app-store apps to be
> uploaded as LLVM bitcode

LLVM bitcode remains architecture-specific (if not platform-specific), you can
not just recompile x86 bitcode for ARM.

> or upload fat-binaries with ARM and x86 machine code (NextStep aka OSX did
> this already a quarter century ago)

That doesn't obviate the _need_ for a transition compatibility layer, complex
software can take years to port to different architectures.

------
lettergram
I'm thinking this is not true. This is the core of Intel's business, I'd be
shocked if they decided to kill it off. They may miss a deadline, maybe two -
however if they want to survive as the behemoth they are today, they'll have
to deliver.

~~~
dmm
I think the idea is that they will eventually create something called 10nm but
it will be very different from the current process in development.

------
fermienrico
I don't see any sources to the SemiAccurate's article. Also, they tend to be
heavily biased and callous with regards to Intel.

~~~
rurban
He called them internal "moles" from within Intel.

------
HelloNurse
The most interesting question is whether the dead Intel process node should be
blamed on bad choices (e.g. deferring adoption of EUV lithography) or on
incompetence, and also on shortsighted financial management or on
optimistic/clueless technical leadership: we can live without Cannon Lake
CPUs, but where will Intel be in 5 years?

~~~
dgacmu
TSMC 7FF isn't based on EUV either, and their 7+ is only going to use it on 4
"non-critical layers" (i.e., they're still testing it out).

The best speculation I've seen is this:

[https://wccftech.com/analysis-about-intels-10nm-
process/](https://wccftech.com/analysis-about-intels-10nm-process/)

> Our sources tell us it had to do primarily with Intel overextending too
> early. SAQP or Self Aligning Quad Patterning is the technique the company
> used to make its 10nm process and it was the first in the industry to
> attempt to do so.

~~~
gok
Isn't GF's 7nm process also dead? [edit: corrected now]

~~~
dgacmu
Argh, thanks, I keep typing GF when I mean TSMC. I haven't had enough coffee.
Edited my post to correct.

------
neverminder
So is this legit? Mods have been killing this story with "NSFB" flag on
/r/intel almost as fast as Intel killed 10nm for the past few hours. Not safe
for who's business exactly in this case?

------
bhouston
Why couldn't Intel get this working with other fabs could? Hubris, lack of
talent or really bad decisions?

~~~
iamdead
From what I understand, Intel's 10nm process is roughly the same as 7nm
processes from other foundries, and Intel's 14nm is more or less 10nm on
someone else's scale.

~~~
maccio92
I see this argument presented over and over and over again but never any
supporting information to prove that claim.

~~~
tux3
Oh I can help with that, the numbers — which may not be up to date, for
obvious reasons — are easy to find:
[https://www.semiwiki.com/forum/content/7602-semicon-west-
int...](https://www.semiwiki.com/forum/content/7602-semicon-west-intel-10nm-
gf-7nm-update.html)

Note that there isn't a single widely accepted way to say who has the better
density, but this table sums up the various metrics pretty well.

~~~
opencl
Density is not really an important metric to end users though. What matters is
power consumption and achievable clock speeds but these are very difficult to
directly compare between processes unless someone has made the same design on
both (as has happened with several phone SoCs dual sourcing from
TSMC/Samsung).

~~~
TomVDB
Density is important for the fab. Power consumption and clock speeds are
something that can be tuned per design even for the same process.

~~~
opencl
Well yes obviously it's important to the fab. Higher density allows them to
fit more dies on a wafer, sell for slightly higher margins, whatever. Great
for Intel but again absolutely zero reason for end users to care. Pricing is
basically completely divorced from the manufacturing costs anyway.

When someone says something like "Intel's 14nm is as good as TSMC's 10nm" I
think most people would expect this to be talking about the performance of the
chips being produced.

~~~
TomVDB
> When someone says something like "Intel's 14nm is as good as TSMC's 10nm" I
> think most people would expect this to be talking about the performance of
> the chips being produced.

One could reasonably assume that when discussion this on a consumer oriented
forum or publication.

But this is an article (for an author with a spotty record at best) about the
state of the industry, not about whether or not you'll be able to clock your
CPU a few MHz higher.

------
philipdestroyer
Can someone who has access tell us what information the paywalled article is
using to make this claim? EDIT: an r/hardware post is claiming the article is
based on anonymous sources that the author knows at Intel. The article claims
Intel is abandoning the 10nm roadmap --> no Icelake 10nm+? Intel also had some
issues with 14nm which is why Broadwell-S and Broadwell came out at the same
time. Whatever the case, Intel will probably have to respond to this.

------
kristianp
Does this mean they'll skip to 7nm? I don't believe it.

~~~
throwaway2048
Process node-size names are more or less semantic marketing games these days
anyways. What TSMC calls 7nm is roughly equivalent to what Intel called 10nm.

Its likely that Intel will roll out a node at that size, but being forced to
abandon their previous attempt is a crushing blow that has set them back
years, and will likely set them back years more to come.

It takes years to develop a node size, and they have had to throw out most of
their work.

------
purplezooey
I don't like the choice of the word "knifing". British English or something?

------
individualcell
That begs a question why something so important as CPU development has been
left to a private company? Wouldn't be better to nationalise Intel and make
sure it develops CPU that can serve the people and help advance the society?
Corporate interests are not always good for the humanity and I think it is
time for a state to step in. Intel has been having free reign for too long.

~~~
dgacmu
Your post reads like trolling, but if you're actually interested in the real
history of this, semiconductor manufacturing has been a joint industry/govt.
thing for almost its entire lifetime. As one starting point, read about
SEMATECH:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEMATECH](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEMATECH)

DARPA has long played a huge role in furthering US semiconductor capabilities.

~~~
individualcell
Look, we have state police, army and then see how disastrous private
healthcare turned out to be.

Maybe DARPA should step up their game then, as instead of nationalising the
Intel they could nationalise their IP and work on affordable and _fast_ CPU
for the people as Intel fails to deliver.

We are yet to see a private company landing human on the moon. Imagine what
CPU we could have today if state really took over.

~~~
dgacmu
I'm not trying to argue with you, because you still sound like you're
trolling. I'm providing some information about this topic for others so they
have a better grounding for reasoning about the issue. Semiconductors are one
of the most interesting grounds for discussing the role of private industry
and the state in advancing the state of the art in technology. See, for
example:

[http://mitsloan.mit.edu/shared/ods/documents/?DocumentID=461...](http://mitsloan.mit.edu/shared/ods/documents/?DocumentID=4615)

[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41928-017-0005-9](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41928-017-0005-9)

and

[https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1545155](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1545155)

[Full disclosure, I'm married to one of the authors.]

