We never really knew why all of a sudden Intel plans to expand its Fab capacity when it should have started one or two years ago. Something was very dysfunctional during BK era.
Intel did not need to "think" or strategize for at least 6 years, having, de-facto, no competition to worry about. So they are in a very bad position, with CPUs that have made marginal progress under several aspects: not only performance, but also scalability. The Core architecture is not designed to scale to 8-16 core CPUs efficiently. I hope they have started now the development of a "really new" architecture, to go against Zen. If so, we'll see the benefits in 4-5 years. Hopefully. Competition is always good.
You forget server cores are different from consumer, different caches, more vector units, different internal buses. Core arc is thinked for server and scalability from the beginning. Your post has not common sense.
Zen arc is severely limited in scalability, in fact it has not success in four and eight sockets market. The few Zen boxes sold are mainly single socket configurations....still right now the Epyc penetration Is so little that it is in the irrelevance territory.
I'm not agreeing with the original poster, but your comment does not make much sense either.
Mercury estimated that AMD had more than 3% share of the server market last year: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-market-share... So the Epyc chips have already made significant gains in a market that is slow to more to new unproven platforms.
And you must not have seen AMD's upcoming 64 core 7nm Epyc chips if you think the Zen Arch. is "limited in scalability". 128 cores in a 2-socket server is going to be way more cores than the vast majority of 4 and 8 socket servers currently in use. So the reason why AMD "has not success in four and eight sockets market" is because they foresaw that you simply don't need expensive niche 4 and 8 socket machines to bring value to the server market.
"So they are in a very bad position". I don't think so. Even when stepping on the break for 6 years as you say, and even staying behind in the manufacturing process, they are still faster in ST computing. Imagine that they are still faster(albeit by a small margin) even though they altrouistically went to vacations to help their "younger" but less skilled siblings (AMD,ARM) catch them. As for the fact , that Intel was 1+ whole process ahead from everyone, and then they fell on successive failures to progress to smaller nodes, year after year, while other less experienced players managed to go on.... Well, it is the right of every person to hold their own beliefs.
Because they did not expect such high demand for parts.
"Because 10nm was late" doesn't hold water, Intel are not taking active 14nm lines out of action to set up 10nm lines that do nothing. Neither is the move of PCHs to 14nm, other than in the short term: those 22nm lines were offlined to set up more 14nm lines.
The more boring explanation is that Intel expected enterprise, HPC and datacentre demand to decline, so lined up the Apple MODEM contract to fill capacity. Then Enteprise, HPC and datacentre demand instead grew, and Intel found themselves holding a high-volume-low-margin contract they could not renege on (Apple are infamously vindictive to suppliers that fail to kowtow) and not enough capacity to satisfy everyone. Thus, MODEMs got top billing, followed by parts by margin: HPC and datacentre, then enterprise (the shortage of business laptops is starting to relax) and then consumer parts right at the bottom mostly as an afterthought with the lowest margins and smallest market segment.
Are you blind for not seeing the big picture? Their 14nm shortage is due to Intel inability to transit to 10nm and transit share of production on their 10nm fabs.
It is going to be the same thing in 1-2 years when they tried to switch their production to 7nm, however this time, they will need to balance their 7nm, 10nm and 14nm workload. It is going to be even worst if 10nm is still unable to provide at least half of the current 14nm production.
It is a huge mess, and the worst is that the industry bypassed, and probably for good this time. There is no going back. Intel should really review their business model because competing against TSMC or Samsung is a lost cause profitably.
I think what’s happened is that Intel and BK specifically believed that they could perpetually achieve the same yields as process tech improved. But what they’ve found is, they can’t.
Combined with the need to build much larger chips to compete with AMD, the massive expansion indicates Intel is doubling down on an already stupid strategy. Good news for AMD.
They are going to wake up. They cannot keep their head underneath the sand anymore. If they do, they will lose market share year after year due to production issue and competition resurgence. I believe Intel will do too little too late this time and lose their pseudo-monopoly for good.
It took AMD almost 30 years, but they might succeed this time.
Thanks to AMD, all of us gamers can now get a 2600 non-X and a B450 board for $220 and still do just as well as an i9 platform 99% of the time at 1/2 to 1/3 of the cost. This is not even counting Zen 2 on the near horizon.
I think that's the real reason Intel fired him. I wouldn't be surprised if the long-defunct personal relationship provided as the reason was in fact actually known about for some time, but when they wanted to make a change, they brought it out an excuse to remove him without having to admit there was anything functionally wrong with the way they were doing things.
Additionally, when I heard about the sorts of things Intel was focusing on from a personnel standpoint over roughly the past decade, it's not that surprising that they may have started having issues in the type of business where constant innovation is required to stay competitive.
<$1bn? What is your source? The original source (the Oregonian) writes: "Christian Dieseldorff, principal analyst for the industry trade group SEMI, said a fab of the size Intel is seeking would cost between $4 billion and $5 billion. " Let's not forget that Intel is also building a new fab in Chandler, Arizona. That fab easily runs in excess of $6 billion. The Israel deal is $11bn, of which Intel pays $10bn. Intel is investing more in the US than Isreal!
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ksec - Wednesday, February 6, 2019 - link
We never really knew why all of a sudden Intel plans to expand its Fab capacity when it should have started one or two years ago. Something was very dysfunctional during BK era.Korguz - Wednesday, February 6, 2019 - link
if intel wasnt trying to make so many cpu's.. maybe they wouldnt need to build or expand their fabs.....close - Wednesday, February 6, 2019 - link
Intel plans on investing almost $1bn in order to give US the C0X and D1X factories.Opencg - Thursday, February 7, 2019 - link
D1X phase 4 expansion in planning. Codenamed B1G D1X expansion.Rudde - Thursday, February 7, 2019 - link
Almost $1bn? Analysts estimate that the D1X expansion alone is more than $4bn.yankeeDDL - Wednesday, February 6, 2019 - link
Intel did not need to "think" or strategize for at least 6 years, having, de-facto, no competition to worry about.So they are in a very bad position, with CPUs that have made marginal progress under several aspects: not only performance, but also scalability. The Core architecture is not designed to scale to 8-16 core CPUs efficiently. I hope they have started now the development of a "really new" architecture, to go against Zen. If so, we'll see the benefits in 4-5 years. Hopefully. Competition is always good.
Gondalf - Wednesday, February 6, 2019 - link
You forget server cores are different from consumer, different caches, more vector units, different internal buses.Core arc is thinked for server and scalability from the beginning.
Your post has not common sense.
Zen arc is severely limited in scalability, in fact it has not success in four and eight sockets market.
The few Zen boxes sold are mainly single socket configurations....still right now the Epyc penetration Is so little that it is in the irrelevance territory.
Smell This - Wednesday, February 6, 2019 - link
SWING! ... and a miss (three times, in fact).You stuck-out, Cowboy.
raddude9 - Wednesday, February 6, 2019 - link
I'm not agreeing with the original poster, but your comment does not make much sense either.Mercury estimated that AMD had more than 3% share of the server market last year:
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-market-share...
So the Epyc chips have already made significant gains in a market that is slow to more to new unproven platforms.
And you must not have seen AMD's upcoming 64 core 7nm Epyc chips if you think the Zen Arch. is "limited in scalability". 128 cores in a 2-socket server is going to be way more cores than the vast majority of 4 and 8 socket servers currently in use. So the reason why AMD "has not success in four and eight sockets market" is because they foresaw that you simply don't need expensive niche 4 and 8 socket machines to bring value to the server market.
IUU - Monday, February 11, 2019 - link
"So they are in a very bad position".I don't think so. Even when stepping on the break for 6 years as you say, and even staying behind in the manufacturing process, they are still faster in ST computing. Imagine that they are still faster(albeit by a small margin) even though they altrouistically went to vacations to help their "younger" but less skilled siblings (AMD,ARM) catch them.
As for the fact , that Intel was 1+ whole process ahead from everyone, and then they fell on successive failures to progress to smaller nodes, year after year, while other less experienced players managed to go on.... Well, it is the right of every person to hold their own beliefs.
edzieba - Wednesday, February 6, 2019 - link
Because they did not expect such high demand for parts."Because 10nm was late" doesn't hold water, Intel are not taking active 14nm lines out of action to set up 10nm lines that do nothing. Neither is the move of PCHs to 14nm, other than in the short term: those 22nm lines were offlined to set up more 14nm lines.
The more boring explanation is that Intel expected enterprise, HPC and datacentre demand to decline, so lined up the Apple MODEM contract to fill capacity. Then Enteprise, HPC and datacentre demand instead grew, and Intel found themselves holding a high-volume-low-margin contract they could not renege on (Apple are infamously vindictive to suppliers that fail to kowtow) and not enough capacity to satisfy everyone. Thus, MODEMs got top billing, followed by parts by margin: HPC and datacentre, then enterprise (the shortage of business laptops is starting to relax) and then consumer parts right at the bottom mostly as an afterthought with the lowest margins and smallest market segment.
eva02langley - Wednesday, February 6, 2019 - link
""Because 10nm was late" doesn't hold water, "Are you blind for not seeing the big picture? Their 14nm shortage is due to Intel inability to transit to 10nm and transit share of production on their 10nm fabs.
It is going to be the same thing in 1-2 years when they tried to switch their production to 7nm, however this time, they will need to balance their 7nm, 10nm and 14nm workload. It is going to be even worst if 10nm is still unable to provide at least half of the current 14nm production.
It is a huge mess, and the worst is that the industry bypassed, and probably for good this time. There is no going back. Intel should really review their business model because competing against TSMC or Samsung is a lost cause profitably.
edzieba - Wednesday, February 6, 2019 - link
"Their 14nm shortage is due to Intel inability to transit to 10nm and transit share of production on their 10nm fabs."/What/ 10nm fabs? They have development lines set up, but they haven't just rolled over a bunch of 14nm lines just to leave them sat idle.
Sahrin - Wednesday, February 6, 2019 - link
I think what’s happened is that Intel and BK specifically believed that they could perpetually achieve the same yields as process tech improved. But what they’ve found is, they can’t.Combined with the need to build much larger chips to compete with AMD, the massive expansion indicates Intel is doubling down on an already stupid strategy. Good news for AMD.
eva02langley - Wednesday, February 6, 2019 - link
They are going to wake up. They cannot keep their head underneath the sand anymore. If they do, they will lose market share year after year due to production issue and competition resurgence. I believe Intel will do too little too late this time and lose their pseudo-monopoly for good.It took AMD almost 30 years, but they might succeed this time.
StrangerGuy - Thursday, February 7, 2019 - link
Thanks to AMD, all of us gamers can now get a 2600 non-X and a B450 board for $220 and still do just as well as an i9 platform 99% of the time at 1/2 to 1/3 of the cost. This is not even counting Zen 2 on the near horizon.Rudde - Thursday, February 7, 2019 - link
They are probably betting on a swift move to 7nm EUV. Some articles claim 7nm will be ready in 2021.twtech - Wednesday, February 13, 2019 - link
I think that's the real reason Intel fired him. I wouldn't be surprised if the long-defunct personal relationship provided as the reason was in fact actually known about for some time, but when they wanted to make a change, they brought it out an excuse to remove him without having to admit there was anything functionally wrong with the way they were doing things.Additionally, when I heard about the sorts of things Intel was focusing on from a personnel standpoint over roughly the past decade, it's not that surprising that they may have started having issues in the type of business where constant innovation is required to stay competitive.
IGTrading - Wednesday, February 6, 2019 - link
Funny thing that Intel gets HUGE TAX CUTS from USA and decides to invest 13 billion USD in Israel and less than 1 billion in USA ;)American workers rejoice!
Israel on the other hand, played a very , very good hand. The true Silicon Valley of the Middle East.
Rudde - Thursday, February 7, 2019 - link
<$1bn? What is your source?The original source (the Oregonian) writes:
"Christian Dieseldorff, principal analyst for the industry trade group SEMI, said a fab of the size Intel is seeking would cost between $4 billion and $5 billion. "
Let's not forget that Intel is also building a new fab in Chandler, Arizona. That fab easily runs in excess of $6 billion.
The Israel deal is $11bn, of which Intel pays $10bn.
Intel is investing more in the US than Isreal!
melgross - Wednesday, February 6, 2019 - link
Honestly, with what’s going on, I’m not happy about Intel building an advanced factory in China.sheh - Wednesday, February 6, 2019 - link
I thought they mainly do there final assembly?The main factory investments in the news recently were in the US, Israel, Ireland.
ilt24 - Wednesday, February 6, 2019 - link
@sheh,Intel has had a fab in China since 2010. Originally it made chipsets on an older process and then in ~2017 switch over to NAND memory.
sheh - Thursday, February 7, 2019 - link
I meant "real" ones, for CPUs.