[HN Gopher] Intel Foundry Services and Arm announce collaboratio... ___________________________________________________________________ Intel Foundry Services and Arm announce collaboration on SoC design Author : mepian Score : 354 points Date : 2023-04-12 13:09 UTC (9 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.intel.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.intel.com) | DeathArrow wrote: | So Intel might use TSMC's better process for some of its own CPUs | while fabbing ARM CPUs in its foundries? | sharedbeans wrote: | These are processes several years down the line. Intel is | saying their processes will be competitive at that point. | vrglvrglvrgl wrote: | [dead] | spiralpolitik wrote: | Huge world-view shift from Intel. Likely the precursor to | splitting the fab part of Intel from the design part with the | intention of spinning one or the other off. | | It also underscores the reality that Intel doesn't think it can | keep its fabs busy/profitable with just its own designs anymore. | belval wrote: | > Intel doesn't think it can keep its fabs busy/profitable with | just its own designs anymore | | Intel has been saying so for the last 2-3 years. | smoldesu wrote: | Not super unexpected though. Pat Gelsinger has been teasing | this move[0] for as long as he's been CEO, and it makes sense. | The industry is verging on RISC again, and Intel _does_ have | meaningful knowledge they can apply here. If their business | model is right, it could be a profitable side pot. | | Honestly, this says less about Intel's desperation to me and | more about ARM's. Just a few months ago they were rushing to | renegotiate their contracts, and there have been rumblings for | a while about ARM's eventual response to RISC-V. They know they | need buy-in from legacy companies to make ARM a lasting ISA, | simply trusting Apple not to throw them under the bus will get | them PowerPC'd in an instant. | | [0] https://www.macworld.com/article/677947/intels-ceo-wants- | app... | adrianmonk wrote: | Now that you mention RISC-V, maybe a bolder move from Intel | would have been to throw their weight behind RISC-V and try | to be the leader of the new tech instead of a co-leader of | the old tech. | | On the other hand, ARM is very popular right now, and maybe | Intel feels like what it needs right now is to take some of | that market to deprive competing fabs of revenue and give | itself better economies of scale. | Dalewyn wrote: | >a bolder move from Intel would have been to throw their | weight behind RISC-V | | Intel axed their involvement with RISC-V.[1] | | [1]: https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/30/intel_ris_v_pat | hfinde... | snvzz wrote: | They will still release some devboard with chips co- | designed with SiFive, and offer their foundries to | clients who want to fab chips based on RISC-V. | | Just not under the Pathfinder program. | klelatti wrote: | This seems absolutely inevitable. | | If IFS is serious it needs to be fabbing SoC's with Arm CPUs and | to be as competitive as possible with TSMC. | | Nothing forces IFS to make Arm CPU's that compete with Intel's | desktop and server products. | | Of course, the two companies have a long history of collaboration | including Intel having an Arm architecture license via StrongARM. | There is an interesting anecdote from Robin Saxby of Arm about | when Steve Jobs phoned him and tried to persuade him to block the | sale of StrongARM to Intel but Saxby convinced Jobs otherwise. | pavlov wrote: | Intel sold off Xscale (nee StrongARM) just before the | touchscreen smartphone boom started. Seems like they would have | been well positioned to take the lead in this market. Probably | Apple would have used an Xscale SOC for the iPhone if Intel had | taken it seriously. | | Strategic blunder of the century so far? | anecdotal1 wrote: | Intel actually designed a CPU for the iPhone. Apple didn't | use it because it failed to meet their performance/thermal | requirements. Intel was not happy about this. | pavlov wrote: | Was it an x86 core rather than Xscale? | sharedbeans wrote: | Sourcing for this? This is a very under-reported story IMO, | the main source we have is self-serving comments from the | guy who screwed it up saying "we passed because it wasn't | going to be profitable at the projected volumes". But I | don't see how Intel would have even been capable of being | the sort of partner that mobile SoC development requires. | DeathArrow wrote: | But Intel did respond with x86 SoCs for smartphones. | Merrifield, Moorefield and Airmont. | Sohcahtoa82 wrote: | And they were plagued with compatibility and performance | problems. | | Almost bought my niece an Android tablet with an x86 CPU. | They were priced super low. Turns out there was a reason | for that. Apps ran like shit and any games written using | the Android NDK just straight-up didn't work. | unethical_ban wrote: | I still have an Asus android tablet with an Intel CPU, | circa 2014. | | It wasn't that great then and it deserves death now. Zero | ability to upgrade or get third party OS on it due to those | processors not taking off. | wmf wrote: | Intel doesn't invest in anything besides x86. They let XScale | languish while they owned it and even if the iPhone used | XScale, Intel still would have found a reason to under-invest | in it. | helsinkiandrew wrote: | Xscale sale was announced 7 months before the iPhone was | announced, but presumably way after work had started and | Apple had asked Intel for a processor. A truly poor decision. | | > There was just one problem: The PC era was about to end. | Apple was already working on the iPhone, which would usher in | the modern smartphone era. Intel turned down an opportunity | to provide the processor for the iPhone, believing that Apple | was unlikely to sell enough of them to justify the | development costs. | | https://www.vox.com/2016/4/20/11463818/intel-iphone- | mobile-r... | LeifCarrotson wrote: | > 7 months before the iPhone was announced, but presumably | way after work had started and Apple had asked Intel for a | processor | | You say that as if Intel should have known that the iPhone | would be an explosive hit. They probably assumed it would | be yet another Blackberry competitor, not really a threat | to their desktop hegemony. | sumtechguy wrote: | That at that time would not have been a bad take. | | The big telcos were handing out data in miserly amounts | and eye bleeding prices (think 50 bucks for 1MB then | another 30-50 for SMS). AT&T was willing to pair with an | unlimited plan set the iPhone wildly ahead of all the | other phones in that category. VZ messed up big on that | one. They were touting how amazing their network was | meanwhile their competition was letting people surf the | net from their phone. VZ was meanwhile still charging | silly rates for SMS. Meanwhile I could open a connection | on an iPhone and use an online chat service or the | unlimited SMS. All of the other phones from that time | could do similar things. It was the per month charge that | people balked at to do simple internet things. Then on | top of that it was _apple_ so it had a bit of cool to go | with it. I personally think though without that data plan | the thing would have been a dud. | nordsieck wrote: | > The big telcos were handing out data in miserly amounts | and eye bleeding prices (think 50 bucks for 1MB then | another 30-50 for SMS). AT&T was willing to pair with an | unlimited plan set the iPhone wildly ahead of all the | other phones in that category. | | From what I recall, the original iPhone only supported | 2G, while contemporary phones supported 3G. I remember a | lot of criticism around the iPhone web experience because | of that, even though the interface was clearly superior | to everyone who used it. | | It looks like there were relatively competitive data | plans available[1] that offered unlimited data. I'm not | really convinced that that was the problem. | | --- | | 1. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2007/04/data-plans- | the-barri... | faeriechangling wrote: | Think of why the iPhone existed in the first place. It | was because Jobs saw the writing on the wall and knew | that cell phones were bound to destroy the market for the | iPod, Apple's moneymaker. Before making the iPhone, he | made the Rokr and Jobs threw massive amounts of resources | into the iPhone at large risk to Apple. He bought up the | patent for multi touch back in 2005. | | I honestly think people overlook this aspect of Jobs | leadership, basically from the time he returned on Apple | he doubled down on mobile computing repeatedly throwing | 50% of Apple's marketing budget into the unproven iPod | for instance. Why was Jobs able to see the writing on the | wall and not Intel? I think Steve Jobs himself said it | best: | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4VBqTViEx4 | | Intel itself was NOT totally blindsided by the mobile | revolution. Intel Atom development started in 2004. Intel | Atom could have dominated the market. There were Intel | Execs pushing Atom. But all the R&D was pumped into the | desktop and server business, the quality silicon was | reserved for the desktop and server business, Intels | execs didn't want these inexpensive chips for what were | presumed to be peoples secondary computers to cannibalise | its expensive desktop and server chips, and the strategic | vision was simply bad. You can apologise for it but the | mistake may have doomed the entire business and plenty of | companies did not make the same mistake. | | Intel wouldn't even exist if they didn't already make | such a shift away from the memory market into the | microprocessor market firing most of the their company in | the process. Intel had leaders with strategic vision and | guts back in the day, and the senior leadership simply | weren't good enough to commit to mobile when that bridge | had to be crossed. | helsinkiandrew wrote: | They didn't have to know that the iPhone would have been | an explosive hit, but they should have seen that Smart | Phone/PDA like device sales were increasing at 30-50% a | year at that time, and there was a definite feeling that | this was the future. | | Even if the iPhone wasn't an explosive hit and the | smartphone growth didn't explode, 10% of Blackberries | market would have meant millions of processors sold to | Apple in the first years and any other Blackberry | competitor that was interested, | marcosdumay wrote: | > there was a definite feeling that this was the future | | Some people thought that, yeah. But not everybody, and | not on the same places Intel sold their chips to. | | Anyway, Intel sold their foundry exactly because its | unitary profit was way too small for them. Since then, | the company only got more expensive, so they wouldn't be | able to keep it. | gumby wrote: | I don't want to defend Intel, but Apple's own announced | hope at the time of the iphone introduction was to | "eventually reach 1% of the phone market". | Nevermark wrote: | Apple was just reassuring customers and the market, by | telling them that their tiny size and newbie market | status was an advantage, not a disadvantage. | | But they clearly had high ambitions for their new | revolutionary ergonomic mobile "phone" + "music player" + | "internet". They wanted to define a new indispensable | market and they wanted to own it. They already had a | multi-year product path and design pipeline for regular | major upgrades in place. | | The iPhone was intended to be a "next big thing" from the | start. | | And it seems unlikely Steve was selling Intel on doing a | new chip for 1% of the phone market. He was telling Intel | this was the future, in some form. | | Apple was an objective market demonstration, with no | ambiguity, that there was now a need for low-power first | (as apposed to speed first) that would got to other | suppliers if Intel didn't move. | | This was a leadership failure at Intel. They happen. | hollerith wrote: | I always thought it was a response to other cell-phone | makers integrating music-player functionality into their | cell phones, threatening Apple's music-player revenue | stream. | gumby wrote: | Me too. Ballmer's reaction to the iphone was not | obviously stupid at the time, especially given Microsft's | business model of direct enterprise sales. | petra wrote: | ARM is open. So that means they would have to compete with | the whole world both on chip design, and fabbing, for a low | power chip, with margins lower than what they are used to. | | Sucsess(as measured in valuation back than, not today, | that's how managers measure themselves), was far from | certain. | mdellabitta wrote: | ARM is not open... You can license the IP. | vlovich123 wrote: | Right. Big company disease caused Intel to miss the | biggest CPU market and relegated to big metal servers | because they got undercut. It's still a miss for the | business and the CEO regardless of how managers/VPs | measure themselves. CEOs are supposed to take a longer | term strategic view. Since the mobile revolution Intel | stock peaked at 2x from before 2007 while Qualcomm has | done about 2x better than them. Of course part of that is | cellular chips / licensing. But there's also other CPUs | that were competing with Qualcomm. Maybe that's why Intel | didn't bother to compete (Qualcomm SoC is CPU+cellular if | I recall correctly). | | It's still a lesson on the importance of keeping a | foothold for the lowest volume market even if you're not | making any money as long as the cost is sustainable - | cutting every unprofitable part of the business leaves | you for disruption. Same thing happened to Microsoft with | smartphones and Google with social. | szundi wrote: | Sadly staying in everything is death by a thousand cuts. | It is hard to have all the strategies at once. | | Magic is finding out what of those can fly and it is not | a manager but a leader quality to do well with new | fields. Although sometimes managers feel the obvious | moves for the short term sometimes better. | jacobr1 wrote: | It is also a lesson for the cost-cutting that is popular | right now. Sure, trim fat and waste - but R&D and and | test projects in new areas are important for future | potential markets. Keep some of that alive even it | currently isn't profitable so that you have paths to | future markets. | mepian wrote: | >Of course part of that is cellular chips / licensing. | But there's also other CPUs that were competing with | Qualcomm. Maybe that's why Intel didn't bother to compete | (Qualcomm SoC is CPU+cellular if I recall correctly). | | Intel had a cellular modem business which they formed in | 2011 and sold to Apple in 2019. | qwytw wrote: | > ARM is open | | Qualcomm still has a 60-70%+ market share in the $300+ | Android phone market and their gross profit margin was | similar to Intel until last year so it's obviously | doable. And XScale/Intel was probably the best positioned | company to dominate the ARM SoC market back in the mid | 2000s. | stefan_ wrote: | Well they also have success in WiFi & Cellular, | ironically two markets that Intel also participated in | _and never succeeded in doing anything, ever_. Truly an | astonishingly mismanaged company. | szundi wrote: | I feel that when every management book starts do bring up | a company as an example, one should just sell the stocks | in 2-3 years. Like Intel and its OKRs. | oblak wrote: | It only cost Otellini his cushy job | baybal2 wrote: | Non-touchscreen smartphone boom been going for years prior. | | The problem was that embedded OS-es like Symbian, A200, | PalmOS were running circles around Windows Mobile. Most of | them used Samsung SoCs which were few times slower than | StrongARM. | | StrongARM was seen exclusively in the context of it being | used to "lift" extremely bloated WinMo smartphones, and was | otherwise thought as an overkill for other uses. | omneity wrote: | To me this seems to be an attempt to leverage their dominant | position at the time to further strengthen it, and eventually | failing to strong-arm the industry. | baq wrote: | The biggest mistake of Paul Ottelini for sure. The world | would look very, very different if he said yes. | lr1970 wrote: | Before becoming Intel's CEO Paul Otellini served as | executive VP of sales and marketing. This uber-blunder is a | great example what happens when you let a "bean-counter" | run a tech company. | | EDIT: corrected factual error. Paul was never a CFO but | much of his career was in sales and marketing. Sales do | count as "bean-counters" because their main metric are | counting PaL. | bushbaba wrote: | Disagree. The Sales leaders are generally also looking | for continued growth 3 years out. Sales know there's | sprints but you are also running a marathon where | continued growth YoY is expected. They should have seen | the smartphone potential and started chipping away to | grow their base long term. | | Similar to why the best sales leaders only do deals where | there's renewal possibilities in 2-3 years out. | klelatti wrote: | That's not correct. Otellini did not serve as CFO at any | time and did not have a finance background. Please check | your facts before making a comment like this. | | Edit: I see you've changed your comment without | acknowledgment. Still wrong 'sales and marketing' isn't | 'bean counting' and Otellini had extensive 'tech' | experience. | lr1970 wrote: | Thanks for pointing out a factual error. I corrected it | and added explicit EDIT paragraph. | svnt wrote: | I mean you should probably just own the whole mistake -- | in no world are bean-counters sales people. | | https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/bean- | cou... | voidfunc wrote: | Have their been any successful major companies run by | former CFOs? My experience here is that it is often a | death sentence via a long road or stagnation. | bee_rider wrote: | Some of their worst years were under Krzanich, who had an | engineering background... I think it is hard to guess | who'll be a good CEO for a tech company. Someone like | Lisa Su with a background in engineering but also lots of | R&D seems like the best pick. The CEO doesn't need to do | the i-dotting, t-crossing engineering stuff anyway, | having a good idea conceptual of what is upcoming and | possible is more important. | TylerE wrote: | Seems like what you need is a triumvirate... an idea guy | (The Jobs), a tech guy (The Wozniak), and a 3rd person | who's main job is to keep the first two from killing each | other, and ideally a sense for operations and PR. | mepian wrote: | Jobs wasn't too bad at tech, he passed Al Alcorn's job | interview at Atari after all. | baybal2 wrote: | > The collaboration will focus on mobile SoC designs first, but | allow for potential design expansion into automotive, Internet | of Things (IoT), data center, aerospace and government | applications. | | Take a note on the wording. They are definitely making a mobile | SoC for somebody, with Qualcomm being the likeliest client. | | But then they instantly dilute it with other buzzwords, and try | to break the line of thinking how it will compete with Intel's | own products. | klelatti wrote: | 'Data center' doesn't necessarily mean Xeon competitors. | okdood64 wrote: | From what I understand Arm for servers is not really a thing | right now. What sorts of industry shifts would it take for this | adoption? What would be the challenges? | franga2000 wrote: | It's very much a thing! AWS and GCP and Oracle have had it | for years, probably others as well. Just a few days ago, | Hetzner launched Ampere based VPS. | qwytw wrote: | Why? AWS has Gravitron and Ampere seems to be growing fast | both seem to be very competitive in certain uses cases. | hashtag-til wrote: | This is the definitive comment in this thread ^. | systemvoltage wrote: | IFS needs to branch off of Intel's umbrella as an independent | Fab competing with TSMC, vertical integration for Intel has | failed to compete in last 5 years. | TylerE wrote: | I recently went from a massive Intel gaming rig (10000 series | i9, 3080, and the 1200w powersupply to match) to a the basic | $1999 Mac Studio (albeit joined with the several 2TB external | SSDs from the old machine). | | Night and day... and the Mac is actually faster for programming | type stuff and the audio stuff I mess around with - on top of | being a much more pleasant environment for both. | | Even for gaming it's a lot more competent than you'd expect, | especially for games that have been ported to Silicon. WoW runs | at over 100fps (NB: 1440p, 165hz gaming monitor) with settings | turned up pretty high. Factorio runs awesome, and just got a | silicon port that bumped performance another 20% or so. | | Obviously it's not so good at AAA games, but I have a PS5 for | that, anyway. A lot more of my Steam library was avilable than | I expected.. all the Paradox grand strategy stuff, lots of | tycoon/city/base builders... | | On a day to day level it's just so much more plesant... | effectively silent (not recording studio silent, there's a very | very slight noise, but it's well below the noise floor if the | household HVAC is running, or you have any sound at all | playing. | | Even maxed out (like a chess engine using all cores) the fans | barely come off idle and the machine temp peaks in the high | 50s. At idle, it sites in the very low 30s, only 10c above | ambient - and things that are on the edge of the SoC, like the | RAM, are only 5c above ambient. | | Then old i0 beast would idle in the 60s and go all the way into | the 90s under load, with fans sounding like jet turbines. | pjungwir wrote: | I'm curious if anyone has a similar story but running Linux | instead of macOS? I have a DIY AMD 5600X system (128 GB RAM, | two M.2 drives) that is fast but warm. In the summer it can | be uncomfortable in my upstairs office, despite A/C. I could | be tempted into trying an ARM workstation if I thought it | would make a big difference on heat. | | I don't really do gaming, except occasional Minecraft with | the kids. My GPU is a 10+ years old GeForce GTX 560, and it | seems fine. (But maybe that only works with x64? I don't | know.) | | I've already had a taste of Apple's ARM speeds with my M1 | Macbook Air. Running `make clean && make` on Postgres is | practically instant. I don't understand what's going on there | to make it so fast. But for my daily work I'd rather be in | Xubuntu. Is anyone out there doing something similar? | robberth wrote: | No experience myself but I've heard good things about Asahi | Linux (https://asahilinux.org/). Not sure how usable it | already is as a daily driver. | hammyhavoc wrote: | Counterpoint to the "but I have a PS5 for that": if you | develop video games or work in CAD every day, Macs just | aren't a sensible option. | | Regarding recording studios, PCs are generally kept in a | machine room away from everything else. | | Great that it works for you, but for a lot of creative | industries, the Mac doesn't make sense in 2023. | TylerE wrote: | Yea, I'm aware how recording studios work. Those of us | making amateur recordings at home don't always have the | luxury. | amelius wrote: | I'm really curious what is holding CAD companies back to | port their software to the Mac? | hammyhavoc wrote: | This is a great question that people were asking even | 15-20 years ago, likely even before then too, but it was | before my time in asking it. | | Essentially, the demand for CAD on Mac just isn't high | enough to justify it, especially when anybody serious | about CAD wants the absolute cutting edge of hardware, | and the ability to expand upon it as soon as the rest of | the industry is able to take advantage of the latest GPU. | Being competitive is everything. | | It's never been a case of software needing to be ported. | Some CAD apps have come and gone on Mac, but the demand | just isn't there in terms of sales to make it worthwhile. | That's not to say that there aren't CAD apps on Macs, | there are, but the big boy industrial toys are elsewhere. | | Keep in mind we used to run Parallels and Bootcamp in the | '00s to get Windows software on Macs! | TylerE wrote: | Plus the dominant platform (Soludworks) is totally built | using MS UI libraries... ribbon, etc. | andromeduck wrote: | I thougt autocad was ported to M1? | TylerE wrote: | No one uses autocad anymore. It's as relevant to the | modern CAD world as MS Basic is to us. Even the | architects have moved on to stuff like Revit. | terafo wrote: | I'd assume their rendering enigne is written for single | API, such as OpenGL or Vulkan. Porting it to metal would | be quite large project. | nine_k wrote: | Isn't there a reasonable OpenGL shim on top of Vulkan? | Gracana wrote: | Cad programs barely work on the systems they're designed | for. I love solidworks, but it's a real turd if you | aren't using one of the correct "certified" driver for | your graphics card. | smolder wrote: | How does this description of your hardware purchases relate | to the post you replied to? Or to the news article? | | Yes, the 10900k as the biggest 14nm consumer chip was a power | guzzler and is bad compared to Intel/AMD/Apples current line | up on new processes. | oblak wrote: | These 10900k or 11 series anecdotes always crack me up. I | switched from M1 Pro to Ryzen 6800H and it feels just as | fast as the much more expensive apple laptop. It's not even | using TSMC 5nm like the new Zen 4 parts. | greenknight wrote: | I think the majority of what made the M1 lineup so | successful, was that they were on TSMC's 5nm before | anyone else, and had that exclusivity. | | November 2020 the m1 mac mini was released... September | 2022 was when Zen4 came along, the next CPU to use the | same node. Nearly a full 2 years. | | Cinebench scores... The M1 Ultra got 24189 | multithreaded... not that impressive but its tdp is | 60w... at 65w the 7950x (eco mode) scored 31308 in the | same test, down from 38291 at full power usage (170w). | | It will be interesting to see if apple pushes for another | exclusivity deal with TSMC for 3nm. | oblak wrote: | AMD is yet to release a TSMC 5nm mobile part (low power | 5nm), so the exclusive foundry lead Apple's been paying | for is more like 2.5 years. It is my understanding that | things are pretty much the same with TSMC's 3nm node. | Apple's lead is all but guaranteed for at least a couple | more years. | pkaye wrote: | > Even for gaming it's a lot more competent than you'd | expect, especially for games that have been ported to | Silicon. WoW runs at over 100fps (NB: 1440p, 165hz gaming | monitor) with settings turned up pretty high. Factorio runs | awesome, and just got a silicon port that bumped performance | another 20% or so. | | WoW doesn't need much hardware to run. What is the fps on the | gaming rig for comparison? | TylerE wrote: | About the same. It's cpunlikited not gpu. But either is | plenty of gps combined with an adaptive refresh rate | monitor... even the studio hits the monitors 165hz cap | indoors, and it's 100+ in most out door zones... some of | the ones with tons of fog get it down into maybe the 80s, | but it's still really smooth... no jitter or | microstuttering. | a_carbon_rod wrote: | I made a similar transition as you earlier this year from a | i7 8700k/GTX 1080 Ti Windows desktop to a Mac Studio and much | like you I'm very happy with that decision for a lot of the | reasons you already described. | | One of the more interesting aspects of the switch I hadn't | considered though is that it actually (positively) impacted | my power bill - I'm paying about $5-$10 less per month since | the switch. | | The difference in form factor is welcome as well - some days | I find myself astonished at how much power fits in such a | (relatively) small box on my desk. | faeriechangling wrote: | The Mac Studio was a bit of a sleeper. For AI inferencing | at 128gb it is higher performance than any affordable | consumer solution with that much memory available, it's | quiet, it's small, it's power efficient, it supports 5 | displays. It costs a lot less than an equivalent MBP. | TylerE wrote: | It's the desktop a lot of us having been waiting for... | no built in screen, no forced purchase of hundreds of | dollars in "magic (i.e. garbage) keyboard/mouse), and | ports out the wazoo... even the base model I have has 4x | Thunderbolt 4, 4x USB 3 (two Type C on the front, 2 Type | A on the back), 10Gb eth, even a headphone jack and SD | slot. | IndrekR wrote: | Interesting comment about the Apple keyboard. I have | bought Apple Magic keyboards for all my Windows machines. | Need a correct driver to make the fn key work and remap | the delete key, but otherwise I have not yet found a | better TKL keyboard. | TylerE wrote: | Hotswap mechanical or nothing for me. I hate low travel | keys (and flat keycaps). | | I actually just bought this last week for the work | machine.. | | https://www.keychron.com/products/keychron-k8-pro-qmk- | via-wi... | | Not as good as the board on my personal PC, but that is a | highly tweaked out, kit built, full metal gasket mount | board that I have _mumble_ hundreds of dollars in to... | margorczynski wrote: | Still the performance vs price seems pretty bad. From what | I see their 10 core 500GB SSD + 32GB RAM costs as much as a | 7950X (16 cores) + RX 7900XT + 64GB RAM + 1TB SSD which | should have better performance and you can actually play | AAA games (at very high performance and quality, also 4k). | | I like Apple stuff (I have an iPhone, MBP) but their high- | end stuff is really overpriced for what it offers. | TylerE wrote: | Well, let's try to compare like for like... | | 7950x = $599 7900XT = $800 64GB of RAM = $150 | | Thats' $1550 right there, before motherboard, storage, | case, cooling, powersupply, etc. By the time you add all | that (plus labor, either in dollars or in time) I bet | you're in the $3500 range with those specs. | | You have to consider the total package... the Studio is | 7" x 7" x 4"... that's smaller than a microATX board, | never mind some giant dual slot graphics card (Which also | draws 300w btw, over 3x what the entire Studio draws). | | Lack of noise, heat, and power efficiency has real value. | Some of us are at a point where we want stuff that _just | works_ , not to fiddle with components and BIOs settings. | Plus, frankly, nobody on the PC side has anything even | close to Applecare. | margorczynski wrote: | I think you went way overboard with the costs - a good | AM5 MOBO is around $200, case $150, AIO cooling or good | fan $100 and a good PSU would be $200. That's a total of | $650. Add to that assembly and sanity checking for let's | say $100 (many times it comes free for these upper end | setups) and we get $750. | | That's a total, with your estimates for the CPU and GPU | prices, of $2300 which is around $1000 lower than the | Studio while having more power. I agree the power | efficiency is worse but also note that the Mac simply | doesn't have access to the same compute power. Also the | CPU and GPU are redlined by default and going down to | almost 50% TDP only causes a 5% drop in performance so it | is not that bad. | | Of course there are advantages that you mentioned (form | factor, better support) but, at least for me, that is not | worth a $1k+ premium. Also using MacOS for me at least is | a pain compared to Linux. | TylerE wrote: | You're comparing against the ultra. I'm using (and | talking) about the base model Max, which is $1999 all in. | (The Ultra is 20 core, btw. It's essentially two Maxes | fused together.) | | I will agree that the Ultra ($3999) is probably not a | great value for most people, since outside of synthetic | benchmarks, it's usually more like 10-20% faster, not | 100%, as outside of editing 8k video or AI, there really | isn't much that scales well to that many threads. | faeriechangling wrote: | Chess Engines I've got to say are an argument against Apple | Silicon, at the same power draw any AMD or Intel solution is | going to beat the pants off of it. | TylerE wrote: | Seems super fast to me? Benchmarking now... | | bench 1024 8 26 in latest stockfish (well, whatever brew | installed two days ago) | | Total time (ms) : 128108 Nodes searched : 1605433485 | Nodes/second : 12531875 | | 12,531,875 NPS is competitive with a 2950x threadripper, | which is an $1100 cpu with a TDP of 180w. The M1 Max has a | power draw under load of about 90w max (and that's the full | SoC), but under typical high loads it's more like 50-60w. | faeriechangling wrote: | 2950x is a weird comparison when it was two generations | older than what AMD had available at the time. Also the | 2950x still did 37422972 NPS which is still roughly 3x | higher. I think it goes without saying that if you look | back enough generations you will eventually find an | AMD/Intel product that gives less performance/watt. | | The 5950x was also available for sale at the time, a | system based on it was cheaper, and it does 54029460 NPS | in stockfish which is over 4x faster. | | It's not like the Mac Studio is too slow for chess | engines to be usable for purposes like analysis, but the | thing is if you make that argument than why not get a | much cheaper Ryzen 5 or Intel i5 based system which is | still faster than the Mac Studio? Say a Ryzen 5600g which | is also pretty power efficient and can fit in a nice | little box and push a few displays? | | https://openbenchmarking.org/test/pts/stockfish&eval=7596 | 252... | TylerE wrote: | Because running chess engines is like 0.5% of what I use | a computer for. | nine_k wrote: | I'd say that much of the M2 speed comes from its ultrawide | RAM interface, only possible because RAM is soldered | basically directly to the CPU die(s). It can't scale to | server sizes, but it makes perfect sense for a laptop or a | smaller desktop. | ChancyChance wrote: | The only real Arm competitor to Intel servers is Ampere. There | are literally thousands of customers to TSMC that Intel can | serve, as long as they don't just focus on whales. Gelsinger | needs to realize intel isn't in the pole position and hasn't | been for a years, but he keeps acting like it. | HPsquared wrote: | "Competition is for losers" | meragrin_ wrote: | Intel Foundry Services (IFS) specifically. | mepian wrote: | The original title says "Intel Foundry" but I had to make it | fit into HN's character limit. | primer42 wrote: | Ahhh another example of the hardest problem in CS - naming | things! | bee_rider wrote: | I wonder if this can be solved by coming up with the | acronym you want (because let's be honest, the clever | acronym is what matters) and asking ChatGPT to work out | what it means. | AstixAndBelix wrote: | It's solved by asking Dang for a charitable exception | mepian wrote: | I can't edit the parent comment anymore so just for the | context, my original title was "Intel and Arm Announce | Multigeneration Collaboration on Leading-Edge SoC Design" and | someone changed it to the current title. | Rexogamer wrote: | "Intel Foundry Services and Arm to collaborate on SoC | design?" | neogodless wrote: | I might have abbreviated "Collab" instead. | mnau wrote: | I hope they can make money from IFS, because based on Intels | lastest earnings, they can't even make money on their own designs | made in their own fabs. | tgtweak wrote: | Glad that Pat is making good on his strategy to offer IFS to | everyone, even bleeding edge process nodes. I really think this | is the only way to truly mitigate the dependance on fabs that are | entirely in the East China Sea region. If Intel can ensure that | IP is safe between IFS and a potential competitor to Intel, then | I think this is all for the better. | lizknope wrote: | I read the press release twice and it doesn't really say much. | I'm a digital physical design engineer. | | What it probably means is that ARM will port their standard cells | and memory compiler to Intel's process. The other IP like the ARM | CPU's are delivered as Verilog RTL and a customer can synthesize | them to standard cells using any foundry's standard cell library. | | When I worked at ARM they would work with any foundry even those | that made competing IP. If my fabless semiconductor company | decided to use Intel as our fab then we would still be using ARM | CPUs in our chips. We aren't going to use Intel though based on | Intel's prior history over the last 20 years of saying they will | be a fab to external customers and then backing away and | cancelling those plans. Based on talking to former coworkers most | of the people talking to Intel as a fab are using it to negotiate | lower prices with TSMC or Samsung. | trustingtrust wrote: | I wonder how this affects TSMCs business in the long run and if | this is a move that is specifically geared towards foundries to | come under US ownership. Interesting regardless. | MangoCoffee wrote: | more competition is better since Global Foundries drop out of | 7nm and Samsung isn't doing any better. | scarface74 wrote: | Intel's first announced partnership to be a third party fab is | to manufacture chips based on processes that were state of the | art in 2013. | | TSMC doesn't have much to fear in the near future. | | Edit: I see where the confusion lies. | | https://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickmoorhead/2022/08/10/inte... | | This was announced two years ago. Intel hasn't proven that it | can be a third party manufacturer for anything close to cutting | edge | | Intel announced they would be producing chips for MediaTek two | years ago. | pedrocr wrote: | Are you perhaps confusing 18A with 18nm? 18A is 1.8nm and is | scheduled for the second half of 2024. | sct202 wrote: | They're referencing the first round of IFS which launched | in 2013 and never really became much of anything but had a | lot of announcements and fanfare at the time. Their foundry | would have been the most advanced available foundry | processes at the time had it launched as planned. From Feb | 2013: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-altera-intel- | manufacturin... | scarface74 wrote: | Actually I was referencing the MediaTek announcement | | https://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickmoorhead/2022/08/10/i | nte... | Aromasin wrote: | What on earth are you talking about? The article is | discussing partnering with Arm using their 18A node. At 20A, | Intel will be transitioning from its FinFET design over to a | new type of transistor, known as a Gate-All-Around | transistor, or GAAFET. In Intel's case, the marketing name | they are giving their version is RibbonFET. This is a | technology that only started to come to a head in early 2020. | The other arm of Intel's 20A and onwards design is what the | company is calling 'PowerVia'. This is usually referred to as | 'backside power delivery' in the industry. Although slightly | older, we're still only talking about 2017 at the earliest. | | Intel has its 2nm node (called 20A, followed by 18A six | months later) lined up for production to start in the first | half of 2024, which compares to TSMC's equivalent node | (called N2) which is scheduled for the second half of 2025. | 18A will be half a node denser than N2, while also being 12 | months earlier to market. | | As to IFS as a concept, it's only recently been revamped in | 2021 after a lackluster attempt in 2013 as you mentioned. So | far they've announced partnerships with Arm, MediaTek, | Qualcomm, AWS, and the DoD. That's a pretty heavy hitting | pack, not including all of Tower Semiconductors customers. | Intel wouldn't be building another 3 fabs if it wasn't | serious this time about building capacity for other | companies. | aDfbrtVt wrote: | Looks like Intel 4nm will only start shipping 2023H2. I'm | not sure I see Intel 2nm shipping less than 6 months later, | especially given Intel's recent history of stumbling on | execution. How firm do you believe the 2024H2 delivery date | of N2 to be? | genmud wrote: | Intel has missed so many deliverables that I take any of | their statements with a healthy dose of skepticism. | | Like their 7nm process has been delayed, what? 4 times? | Have they even shipped it? Its the same story they had with | the 10nm process too. IIRC they were behind like 5-6 years | on that one too. | artimaeis wrote: | Intel Raptor lake CPUs are widely available these days | and are built on Intel 7N. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik | i/Raptor_Lake?cmdf=intel+13th+... | monocasa wrote: | Intel 7 isn't their 7nm process, but their renamed 10nm | process. | jjoonathan wrote: | TSMC 7nm HPC: 66M Transistors/mm^2 TSMC 7nm | Mobile: 96M Transistors/mm^2 Intel 7: 100M | Transistors/mm^2 TSMC 7nm+: 115M | Transistors/mm^2 | | It was perfectly fair for them to rename it, but yes, in | the context of deliverables it's the same slipped process | that used to be called 10nm. | [deleted] | baq wrote: | Yeah Intel has had a great roadmap for the past decade. | They haven't executed most of it and when they did, they | were years late to market. They have a couple years to | fix that or they'll live on government subsidies. | nsteel wrote: | > Arm, MediaTek, Qualcomm, AWS, and the DoD | | Remember that unlike the others, Arm won't be an actual | customer here. They don't require any capacity themselves. | fbn79 wrote: | Interesting to know that "2nm" and "20A"(Armstrong) are | just marketing names, they don't reflect physical sizes | | - see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2_nm_process#:~:text=T | he%20ter... | smolder wrote: | Probably an autocorrect mishap, but in 20A the A is for | angstrom. | gibspaulding wrote: | My understanding is that hasn't been the case for a long | time now. Wikipedia is saying the last node actually | measured by transistor length was from 1994. | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiconductor_device_fabr | ica... | klelatti wrote: | > 18A will be half a node denser than N2, while also being | 12 months earlier to market. | | It would be interesting to hear what the consensus view is | on Intel actually being able to meet this timetable. Surely | a strong degree of scepticism is warranted given their | recent record. | chasil wrote: | A recent interview with Shang-Yi Chiang, former Vice | President of R&D at TSMC (also held positions at TI, HP, | and SMIC) had insightful commentary on the speed of | bringing up a new node. | | "We all take two years to develop one generation, how | come you guys can do it in one or one-and-a-half year?" | And they asked if some of your customer transfer | technology to you or what not? And I told him, "No," I | told him that, "That's not true." I think he probably | implied we steal technology from customer, the way he | talk. | | And I say, "I'll tell you why." I said that, "When we | develop one node, basically you have some learning | cycles. First, you do some simulation. And you have some | idea, then you run wafers to prove that. So, you run a | group of wafers according to simulation and you have some | splits. The wafer runs through the fab, they come out and | you measure them, you analyze them, and you try to | improve and you run this again. This again, you run. So, | this is learning cycle." At that time, "It takes about | six learning cycle, roughly, to complete one generation." | Of course, you had some short loops and not just one. I | said that, "My R&D wafer in the fab run much faster than | yours, because my R&D engineer works three shifts and you | only work one shift. So, your R&D wafer move eight hours | a day, my work/move 24-hours a day. So, my wafers go | three times faster, even if you are twice smarter than | me, I still beat you up." <laughter> | | https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/10279 | 267... | smolder wrote: | Some skepticism, but not too much. There's a decent | possibility the self-sabotage at Intel stopped after new | CEO Pat Gelsinger took over. | | Previous leadership was seriously mismanaging things. The | following comment sheds some light on their stagnation | during the 10nm/'Intel 7' node development period: | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31759034 | scarface74 wrote: | Intel's _first_ announcement when they decided to | manufacture for third parties wasn't ARM it was MediaTek. | | Intel has a long way to go to prove they can catch up. | | https://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickmoorhead/2022/08/10/int | e... | | Intel isn't dabbing cutting edge chips from them | lumb63 wrote: | This is huge. For one, it can decrease geopolitical risks for | US-based firms. It also offers a chance to obtain higher-end | silicon. Some companies can't afford to use TSMC's latest and | greatest silicon because big companies have soaked up all the | capacity. This offers an alternative route for them. Hopefully | it will make the environment much more competitive. | galangalalgol wrote: | Is anyone trying making IOT type devices in geopolitically | stable places (in so far as there are any). Espressif seems | like a pretty clear leader right now, but perhaps that is | only from a hobbyists perspective? If bad things happened we | would have bigger problems then wifi enabled toothbrushes, | but it seems like a niche someone should make more robust and | diverse. | swamp40 wrote: | Future US made IOT devices will mostly be ARM Cortex M33 | and M0+ microcontrollers. They have the latest cryptography | and safety features built-in and nice libraries. It's | surprisingly difficult to find out what fabs build them. | Maybe someone here can chime in? | galangalalgol wrote: | Those things mostly don't have built in wifi which is | annoying, because then you need a separate chip for the | wifi. Atmel is the exception, arduino even makes a dev | board with it, but it is $35 vs $8 for a esp32 devboard. | consp wrote: | Can't IoT devices be made on older fab's like the 32/40nm | and up fab's available in for instance Germany (GloFo)? | There are more of them in other more-or-less stable | regions. | blackoil wrote: | Shouldn't IoT be most sensitive for power consumption? | galangalalgol wrote: | Usually more sensitive to price I think? Many IOT devices | plug into wall outlets. For those that don't, I would | expect the wireless capability to dwarf the power | consumption of the chip itself, but it seems like newer | fabs would definitely be a good thing. | Groxx wrote: | Yeah. Depends on a lot, but only small independent things | really care about power. For the rest, put a bigger | battery on it or plug it in... and nearly the entire | consumer market for IOT can just plug it in. | selectodude wrote: | Of course, but I imagine Intel's spare 14nm+++++++++++ | capacity is pretty significant at the moment, which is | best in class (non-TSMC division). | agloe_dreams wrote: | This is totally true, Esp. if Intel can be competitive. The | dark side outcome is if it is really successful, it can | really destabilize Asia by making the outcome of invading | Taiwan less important to the west. | Dalewyn wrote: | >making the outcome of invading Taiwan less important to | the west. | | That's the whole point of the recent semiconductor | investment boom, though. Reduce dependence on Taiwanese | silicon so that we can care less about the geopolitics of | the region. | | The west essentially is getting tired of playing bodyguard | to Taiwan; because as has been evident with the Ukraine | invasion, the west is not willing to go to war to protect | peace. | SCUSKU wrote: | I would imagine TSMC and the Taiwanese government are | keeping a really close eye on this and doing everything | they can to mitigate their the erosion of their Silicon | Shield. I wonder what exactly though... | alimov wrote: | > Some companies can't afford to use TSMC's latest and | greatest silicon because big companies have soaked up all the | capacity. | | Apple is single handedly bankrolling the latest and greatest | from TSMC. If it wasn't for them, the latest and greatest | would likely be even more expensive/out of reach for "some | companies". | smoldesu wrote: | Not single-handedly, Nvidia also puts up multi-billion | dollar investments in TSMC's fab technology. That's what | put them on the 4nm node so early. | Maursault wrote: | Glad to hear Leading Edge is back in the game![1] | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leading_Edge_Products | helsinkiandrew wrote: | Interesting to see Intel (or atleast a part of Intel) 'working | with' a competitor. | | Although this might help Intel become more of a foundry player | like TSMC this could help ARM get a greater share of the the | server market over Intels xeon processors. | phendrenad2 wrote: | So what does this mean for RISC-V? | snvzz wrote: | Not much. | | All we've learned here is that Intel foundry will fab some ARM | chips. | [deleted] ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-04-12 23:00 UTC)