Intel Provides Update On 7nm, New US Fabs, "Intel On" Event

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Intel Provides Update On 7nm, New US Fabs, "Intel On" Event

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger is hosting a webcast to provide an update on the company's manufacturing and other engineering efforts...

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Intel-7nm-New-US-Fabs-Intel-On

[tildearrow]

Is there any reason why does Intel take forever with 7nm and why are the other brands ahead of Intel?

Are they trying to achieve true 7nm (as in very tiny spacing) or something?

[fafreeman]

Is there any reason why does Intel take forever with 7nm and why are the other brands ahead of Intel?

Are they trying to achieve true 7nm (as in very tiny spacing) or something?

incompetent management. followed by engineers who thought they could do more and added an unrealistic bucket list to both 10nm and 7nm. which circled back to incompetent management that didn't say no. at this stage, intel has nearly cleaned out their management so hopefully with gelsinger they can get back on track.

[caligula]

I guess this will compensate for the fact that the coming Rocket Lake isn't awesome at all..

[ms178]

I haven't seen the stream yet, but I definetly will take a look. Thank god that this presentation wasn't about Rocket Lake or Cascade Lake which are symbols of stagnation. At least from a PR perspective they did everything right here and clearly want to get the message across that Intel starts to care more about technology again. During the last decade their focus was on revenue only, with the lack of competition that was understandable but I would have thought they would come back sooner and be more agile on the technology front. But it took them four years of AMD hitting them where it hurts, in the data center, to actually do something meaningful about it.

But just as Lisa Su (and her team of ex-IBMers) lead AMD back on the path of success, I hope that Pat Gelsinger will be of equal importance to Intel with great offerings for us consumers from both companies at the same time eventually.

[Jumbotron]

Is there any reason why does Intel take forever with 7nm and why are the other brands ahead of Intel?

Are they trying to achieve true 7nm (as in very tiny spacing) or something?

Intel's former CEOs fell into the trap of Wall Street and Hedge Funds wanting their quarterly profit increases above anything else. Intel fell into the trap of trying, like Microsoft, to invade already mature sectors of computing like mobile, particularly phones, and network switches like Cisco, without first spending a metric crap ton in R&D and infrastructure into their own fabs.

Thus when they hit 14nm they were tapped out. The Wall Streeters and the Hedge Fundies demanded they kill Larrabee, and kill Mobile, and kill 4g and 5g Baseband chips, and kill their Edison chips, in fact kill EVERYTHING that wasn't releated STRICTLY to CPUs and particularly overpriced XEON CPU's. They also wouldn't allow Intel to advance their Fabs which would have diverted BILLIONS of profit from Wall Street to the Fabs.

Intel has been stuck now with "Paper Advances" and Vaporware Advances. Like their 14nm +++++++++++++++++ process nodes and CoreiSomethingmeaningless chips made from those 14nm +++++++++++++++ process nodes.

Intel will NEVER have ANYTHING at 7nm at scale until late into 2023 particularly in the consumer space unless it's Chromebook and Ultrabook based. And they will NEVER get to 3nm. "Kicking" Pat Gelsinger will just ramp up the "Paper" launches to try to freeze Intel customers into NOT going with AMD with promises of 7nm and beyond. Be on the look out for REALLY....REALLY....innovative blue themed Power Point Slide shows.

[piotrj3]

Is there any reason why does Intel take forever with 7nm and why are the other brands ahead of Intel?

Are they trying to achieve true 7nm (as in very tiny spacing) or something?

Most confusion comes from marketing. Actual density of TSMC 7nm is very similar to Intel 10nm. So intel 7nm is supposed to be similar to TSMC 5nm. Those 7 or 10 or 14 nm is mostly marketing bullshit.

Intel is behind, but more important aspect where Intel is behind is lack of modular designs what makes it easy for AMD from manufacturing point of view make 32 core CPU by just using 4 chiplets with 8 cores, while Intel struggle extremly to print 28 core Xeon (that needs to not have errors for entire giant chip).

[torsionbar28]

- By end of this year, most wafer starts at Intel will be on 10nm.

They've literally been saying this for years now. "year of Intel 10nm" is quickly becoming the new "year of Linux on the desktop" :-)

[CommunityMember]

Most confusion comes from marketing.

There was a time when the lithography size was mostly comparable and a good enough measure. That time has past.

Actual density of TSMC 7nm is very similar to Intel 10nm. So intel 7nm is supposed to be similar to TSMC 5nm. Those 7 or 10 or 14 nm is mostly marketing bullshit.

There is a general direction most of the manufacturers are starting to converge on, and for a single number (they actually want three, but for one) that number would be transistors per mm**2, and Intel 10nm is actually slightly better than TSMC 7nm. Of course, the "+" variants move the dial a bit too.

[torsionbar28]

There was a time when the lithography size was mostly comparable and a good enough measure. That time has past.

Sure that's fine. But intel wielded it as a marketing weapon every time it was to their advantage. When AMD was seemingly stuck at 28 nm, intel was awfully proud of their 22 nm and 14 nm lithography. When intel was ahead in the Ghz race, their message focused on clock speed. As soon as AMD started pulling ahead on clocks, intel quietly changed their message. And again with Intel trash talking AMD's "glued" together chiplets, right up until Intel announced they'd be doing the same. So with this history in mind, I have no problem with AMD shouting from the rooftops how they're happily on 7 nm, while Intel still struggles with 10 nm.