Intel 45nm Processors Waiting to Clobber AMD's Barcelona? 302
DKC writes "Tech ARP's anonymous source claims that Intel is merely waiting for AMD to release their Barcelona processors before they clobber them with their 45nm die-shrinked processors. In fact, Intel is already producing these 45nm processors at one of their fabs in Arizona. AMD and Intel are in for a long and tough battle ahead. Should be an interesting one though."
Nice (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, there is more than one truth (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, seeing that they already are > 3/4 of the (x86) cpu market, and AMD will only ramp up slowly, Intel would most of all hurt the sales of their own established product lines.
Re:So 45nm is not innovating? (Score:4, Insightful)
Whether making money is evil depends on how you make it. In particular, anticompetitive behavior is not a legal or moral way to make money.
Why wait? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, I know, it's good business and makes the stockholders happy. But as a geek, I'm not into the business side of it. I am into the technology and performance aspect. What if AMD never releases Barcelona? Does Intel never release these new 45nm monsters (or only release them in the quantities already produced, at extremely inflated prices)?
It reminds me of the days of the AMD K6. Intel was "stuck" at 266 Mhz. Reaching beyond that was "impossible". Then, suddenly AMD released a K6 at 300Mhz. Within a week, Intel released the 300 and 333Mhz Pentiums (P-IIs I think). That kind of pissed me off. How much sooner could Intel have released the 300? How much further could they have gone? How many people were forced to pay top dollar while Intel sat back and quietly raked in the cash, knowing that they were selling an inferior product marketed as "the best we can do", when, quite frankly, it wasn't.
This is the action of a monopoly, plain and simple.
AMD is in precarious condition (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well, there is more than one truth (Score:5, Insightful)
That said, I want AMD to come out with some kick ass chips. If it weren't for AMD forcing innovation down Intel's throat we would still be stuck with that crap they called the Pentium 4. If AMD continues to lag behind in performance and sales, it will only lead to slower development tracks from Intel.
-Rick
Re:So 45nm is not innovating? (Score:5, Insightful)
What you declare is simply not true.
45nm is the result of a huge amount of innovation, just as 65nm was compared to 90nm. There are a lot of technological hurdles to overcome as the length of transistors are scaled. For example, improved high-k dielectrics are required to increase the channel capacitance and reduce leakage. Improved isolation between devices is required. Tighter tolerances for lithography are needed. Better control of ion implant doses are required. More stable silicides are needed to reduce interconnect resistance. Better drain structures are needed to deal with the increased electric field density in the transistor channels. Improved thermally conductive materials need to be developed because the heat density is increasing. I could go on and on and on. Scaling transistors is onere is a huge financial incentive to do so, and tens of thousands of engineers worldwide are attacking the problems from many angles.
What most people don't understand about device scaling is that it isn't a single problem to be solved. It is a huge number of equally challenging problems spanning multiple engineering disciplines.
What we really need to look forward to... (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't get me wrong, I love x86, it has been great, and has adapted amazingly into the most powerful computing the world has ever seen.
But, since most software is tied to x86, we are holding ourselves back from hardware advancements. x86 is loaded with archaic instruction sets for compatibility with Windows code that is based on 16bit DOS code.
I'm not laying out flame bait, this is what I read in an article about the future of processors, and moving to specialized co processors.
It was a cool article, I wish I remember what it was.
Re:So 45nm is not innovating? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is why I wish AMD was still as competitive (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This is why I wish AMD was still as competitive (Score:3, Insightful)
Also given that Intel is investing heavily in 45nm fabs and they need to recoup those costs by using those fabs. Using a smaller process means they can product more units per die which drives per unit costs down (ignoring capital investment in the plant retrofit). So they aren't just sitting back on profits... when better profits are ahead of them when they start to leverage their investment in 45nm process / fabs.
Re:Whatever... (Score:3, Insightful)
AMD released the K6 in April of 1997. After that, they released the K6-2 and even the K6-3 right before the Athlon came out. The K6 competed very well against the PII. The K6-2 and K6-3 competed will against the P-III until the Athlon was released. Well, you know the story from there.
I try to buy AMD exclusively and this article is a fine example why. I won't buy from a company who is holding back their best from me in order to milk every last hard earned dime they can from me. I'm sure AMD would do the same if they could, but they are not, so I buy from them.
Third Player Will Steal the Gold (Score:5, Insightful)
While these two Goliaths are locking horns and fighting over soon-to-be-obsolete technology, a third player will sneak behind them and steal the pot of gold. Let's face it. CPU architecture is due for a radical change. The computer world is going parallel and the old algorithm/thread paradigm is showing its age. There's a sweet scent of revolution in the air. Who will be the leader of the next revolution? Sun, IBM, Tilera? We'll see.
Re:So 45nm is not innovating? (Score:2, Insightful)
To make a 40cm ball instead of a 30cm ball, you need a bigger cast. You'll probably need more laborers, too. You'll need more materials to make the ball because it's significantly larger, and you'll probably need stronger tools to bring in the material. In fact, you may need to start using a new material altogether, because the old material might not be capable of holding a spherical shape when the diameter is increased 33%.
I just made the same argument for different sized metal bearings as you made for different nanometer threading. It wasn't even hard to do, either, because all I had to do was think about the scale. The GP said it best: "It's just the same technology, the same process, on a different scale." Sure, making 45nm chips is complicated, but complicated does not equal innovative.
Innovation would require taking a route that is completely unlike anything we're seeing today. I can't give an example, because if I could, I'd have a million dollar idea and I sure as hell wouldn't be posting it on Slashdot. The point is, though, that just because moving to 45nm is hard, it doesn't make it innovative.
Re:Why wait? (Score:5, Insightful)
Based on those examples, I would say that genuine progress by Intel is slow, and that any sudden shifts are really the result of having already produced the technology and holding it back.
Welcome to capitalism (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Third Player Will Steal the Gold (Score:2, Insightful)
CELL Processors FTW
Re:A little dissappointing (Score:2, Insightful)
The open ones are severely limited, no surprise given the lack of help from ATI.
Intel, on the other hand, has excellent open source graphics drivers.
Re:What we really need to look forward to... (Score:3, Insightful)
While Itanium has a niche market, and SPARC and others are still viable, continued bumps in performance on the x86 stack has caused it to continue to be very competitive for many applications. And compatibility is a wonderful thing. It gets more important, not less, as the number of existing x86 systems continues to grow.
Re:So 45nm is not innovating? (Score:5, Insightful)
I highly doubt they would sit on a process till AMD is out with a new product. The road to marketshare is not to wait for your competitor, it is to get your product out as far ahead as possible. Given the options I believe Intel is likely still working out some non-trivial (i.e. no microcode workaround) issues in the 45nM process before releasing.
Which sounds more plausible?
* Intel sits on a new process, risking sanctions, not making money (actually losing money given the cost of running a fab), just to beat AMD at their launch.
* Intel has some bugs to work out, and does not want to relive a PPro style recall for _any_ reason as that would be disaster.
-nB
Re:What we really need to look forward to... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What we really need to look forward to... (Score:2, Insightful)
I think a better optimization would be to replace English with Interlingua. And I think it's about as likely to happen as ditching x86.
If you like spending $250+ on a CPU, sure. (Score:4, Insightful)
Right now on any web site, you can order a X2 CPU with full dedicated L2 cache per core for around $70. The cheapest Core 2 Duo is the E4300 at $150. That has a bottlenecked 800Mhz FSB, not a fancy 2.0Ghz hypertransport bus like the X2. To get a 1066Mhz FSB C2D requires you go up to $190 or so.
Intel motherboards seem to require a premium as well. nVidia can make AM2 chipsets with firewire, dual ethernet, onboard 7.1 audio, multiple SATA and eSATA connectors, etc, for roughly $100 less than then equivalent Intel chipset board. Is that because Intel wants more $$ for its chipset licences?
So... when you do get this same base performance, it comes at a price. Honestly, you would be better served by getting an 8800 instead of an 8600 GeForce for the difference in CPU and motherboard costs. Plus, those SLI motherboards for AM2 are around $150 vs. the $220 + for Intel ones.
Intel's Not Waiting for Anything (Score:5, Insightful)
1) If Intel could produce volume 45nm right now it would - better chips, cheaper to make, higher performance, higher margin on the best ones - why would they hold back?
2) Even if Intel just cared about humiliating AMD, it would do it much more thoughly if Intel could bring out the 45nm stuff BEFORE Barcelona even ships. Believe me, if Intel could do that, it would.
3) Anyone who has any idea what's going on in the industry knows Intel is putting massive effort behind getting out the 45nm technology as soon as possible. There is NO financial upside in living with older process technology any longer than you have to. (Unless you're AMD and you don't have the latest process technology and have to bring out your flagship quad core on old 65nm process)
So, in summary, 45nm stuff may well give Barcelona a run for it's money, but there's no way Intel is holding it back for dramatic effect.
Re:So 45nm is not innovating? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So 45nm is not innovating? (Score:5, Insightful)
It actually does require innovation; old things have to be done in completely different ways.
What you're saying is that if someone created a space ship that could travel at light speed, that would not be innovative. We already have space ships that go slower than light speed, so it's trivial to scale it up. That's obviously not the case.
Ideas, by themselves, are worthless. The real innovation is how to actually do it. That, combined with the ability to do it, is what makes a technology company money. Nanoscale chip fabrication does in fact require real innovation. Materials at this scale have different properties than they do at a larger scale. If it didn't require innovation, we would have been making 5nm chips for years now.
Re:Right, AMD is not competitive. (Score:4, Insightful)
(1) How much power does it draw?
(2) How much heat does it make?
(3) How loud is it?
The market is worried about how "livable" computers are. That's why laptop sales have grown so much.
AMD x2's are good chips (I have one and like it fine), but the market will turn on efficiency questions not performance.
Re:Right, AMD is not competitive. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So 45nm is not innovating? (Score:2, Insightful)
Yep, except Intel isn't being anticompetitive by creating superior processors or withholding them for the right time. Many businesses, like movie studios and game publishers, delay releasing their content to maximize their profits. It's not illegal to conspire to put your competitors out of business.
Re:Intel's Not Waiting for Anything (Score:3, Insightful)
1. You spend, let's say, $10-100M to design a chip and its test systems, get it through quality and reliability testing, and into production. That's a one-time investment. From then on, every chip you make costs a few pennies of silicon, and a few dollars of testing, offsetting that enormous initial investment. You'd really like to, y'know, profit. The more chips you sell, the more you amortize that initial investment. Here's a strategy to put you out of business: make an incredibly fast new chip, costing $10M in R&D and fab, sell 10,000, then the next week make another chip, even faster, such that everyone buys it instead of the previous one. In order to make back what you've spent you have to charge a stupid amount of money. A successful strategy is to forecast how many you think you'll sell, design to see if you can meet that forecast, start selling them for a little more than you need to make your profit margin if you sell the amount you want to, then slowly cut prices down so that the product goes end-of-life at some point after it's paid itself back.
2. You're right. Intel isn't in the business of humiliating AMD, they're in the business of making a profit. There's some profit to be made in reputation, but given that computer buyers mostly fall into two camps, those who don't know what a CPU is and those who buy the highest-performing chip, regardless of who made it, I doubt humiliation is a good return on investment.
3. Companies spend a lot of money on research on where they're going, so they won't be surprised when they get there, but it's a much better idea to figure out the problems in small-scale, and then go to full production. The longer you can run on your old, already-paid-off fab equipment, the longer you can delay buying new equipment. There's a huge financial upside to not buying new equipment, and you know already that whatever you do, whatever equipment you use is going to have 70-80% utilization, so why not put all that hurt on old equipment, for as long as possible?
It's not being held back for dramatic effect. It's being held back because if you can sell the same thing tomorrow that you sold yesterday, you save money on developing the processes to bring the new stuff into full production.
These guys are idiots (Score:4, Insightful)
Until AMD launches the Barcelona, Intel have no reason to start selling 45 nm processors.
Umm, that's not true at all. Here are some reasons:
1) Lower cost - you get more 45nm CPU's per wafer than 65nm CPU's so they cost less if you have similar yield ratios.
2) Lower power systems are attractive now to large purchasers. On a system level, AMD is very competitive with Intel (and sometimes ahead of Intel) on performance per watt. This is very important to companies with huge server farms.
3) Higher single-threaded performance per core. The 45 nm shrink will allow them to run cooler and at higher clock speeds thus producing high-end high-margin CPU's that gamers and performance junkies crave.
4) The way to crush your opponents isn't to let them catch up before you move forward. Have you ever seen someone in a relay race wait for their opponent simply because they know the next runner on their own team is fast? You have to get ahead and stay ahead as far as possible. If you even let them have the appearance of catching up, you won't maintain your image of indomitable superiority.
Re:Well, there is more than one truth (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, but by switching to 45nm fabrication they are increasing the yield of their production facility, so they can produce more products for the same amount of raw material. Switching to 45nm chips is in Intel's best interests long term.
Actually, yield is the percentage of manufactured chips that are functional. When you shrink the die, you tend to get poorer yields and have to use more expensive wafers. Essentially, small imperfections (and all chips have them) that don't matter to 90nm parts will render 45nm parts completely non-functional or sub-standard. Of the chips that DO work, more will end up in the slower bins.
In spite of that, switching to 45nm IS in Intel's best long term interests. As they gain experiance and make process improvements, yields will go up and costs will come down. However, they probably won't benefit in the short term.
Re:Right, AMD is not competitive. (Score:1, Insightful)
His: 1.9 -> 2.4 (26% OC)
Friend's: 2.4 -> 3.6 (50% OC)
It becomes quite a different comparison when it is fair.
* Tested first-hand w/Prime95, Orthos, SuperPi, 3dmark. But I run mine at 3.2 GHz (33% OC) for everyday use, just to bring this conversation back to reality.
** Damn, I forgot to include a bad car analogy.
Re:Right, AMD is not competitive. (Score:3, Insightful)
His comparison was flawed, but the difference in their unmodified machines would not be so much as to justify an additional $400.*
In fact, this is why I always step back my performance requirements to roughly the middle of the pack. The savings you get there can enable you to completely replace your entire machine twice as often as your state-of-the-art friends. If you time your purchases right, you can barely spend one year out of four with a machine inferior to your friends for the same money
*to a sane individual. Hardcore gamers excluded.
Re:Nice (Score:3, Insightful)
Until it degenerates to one of two:
They compete. You win. One wins. You lose.
They compete. You win. They go "wtf, let's both make a killing". You lose.
Granted the last decade has been great, but face it... in that time Intel has made two terrible strategic blunders, the Pentium 4 and the Itanium. AMD did great innovation with the Athlon and 64-bit processors, and yet AMD has barely passed 20% in market share, has lost the performance crown and is a full generation behind on process technology. It's like watching a chess game where one side is way up in material but has only been moving pieces without striking. There's only so long you can live on miracles from your side and blunders from the other. Sure their prices are competitive but it's because they have to, their margins are down the toilet. If the savings they have to make hit the R&D department, their present is saved but the future is screwed. Not to make it a complete doomcasting but I fear for the future of AMD...
Re:Well, there is more than one truth (Score:3, Insightful)