Is Qualcomm the New AMD? 331
colinneagle writes "It's a darned shame, but the writing is on the wall for AMD. The ATI graphics business is the only thing keeping it afloat right now as sales shrivel up and the company faces yet another round of staffing cuts. You can only cut so many times before there's no one left to innovate you out of the mess you're in. Qualcomm, on the other hand, dominates this space, and it has the chips to back it up. The Snapdragon line of ARM-based processors alone is found in a ridiculous number of prominent devices, including Samsung Galaxy S II and S III, Nokia Lumia 900 and 920, Asus Transformer Pad Infinity and the Samsung Galaxy Note. Mind you, Samsung is also in the ARM processor business, yet it is licensing Qualcomm's parts. That's quite a statement."
Re:We NEED Processor Competition (Score:3, Interesting)
I've been boycotting intel for years because of their anti competitive bullshit. Nvidia too. Unfortunately I'm in a tiny minority. Nobody really gives a fuck.
Re:If AMD Dies... (Score:5, Interesting)
Intel is already years ahead of AMD. They have well over 80% market share in the PC market and over 90% in the server and workstation market. There's a large performance spread between AMDs processors and Intels processors in both single threaded performance and overall performance per watt. If Intel wants to bend consumers over, they are already in a position to do so. However, they seem to be sticking to their roadmap despite the fact that AMD has been falling farther and farther behind.
Re:If AMD Dies... (Score:5, Interesting)
If Intel wants to bend consumers over, they are already in a position to do so. However, they seem to be sticking to their roadmap despite the fact that AMD has been falling farther and farther behind.
Have you looked at Intel CPU prices lately? It hasn't been this bad since the Pentium II times. I would also point out that there are no Ivy Bridge server processors available, nor is their 6 core processor based on Ivy Bridge despite the first Ivy Bridge processors coming out a long time ago.
Re:If AMD Dies... (Score:5, Interesting)
What are you talking about? In performance per US dollar, Intel has been winning the race hands down. I can get a Core i-5 3570k for about $220 USD. With decent memory, motherboard and cooling I can clock it up to 4.4 ghz and it's stable and not running too hot. To get that kind of performance at that price from AMD... oh, wait.. I can't.
Semi-Accurate on why AMD is cratering (Score:5, Interesting)
AMD management made some bad decisions, then got rid of all the people who argued against those decisions. Now they are going to cut costs by firing the engineers who could develop new products. It is now inevitable: AMD is doomed.
"Unless the entire board and their puppets are removed in the next week or two, the little chance AMD has now will vanish. There is no up side here."
AMD's layoffs target engineering -- Board incompetence dooms the company [semiaccurate.com]
"AMD senior management, or (mis)management, as we are now calling them, have delayed the roadmap past the critical point. Project Win was survivable, barely. The churn of technical talent made things worse, far worse, and put the company at the breaking point. Layoffs sapped confidence, and senior management was negligent in not messaging a damn thing to those who mattered internally and externally. The cuts that will follow ensure that the plans in place are not achievable, and SemiAccurate can not see AMD surviving at this point."
AMD is imploding because management doesn't understand semiconductors -- Analysis: You can't Win by ignoring fundamentals [semiaccurate.com]
Re:What is Samsung licensing the competing CPUs fo (Score:3, Interesting)
Samsung has to run its parts and products business independently, otherwise their parts business would lose Apple as a customer, and loathe as anyone is to admit it, Apple is a customer you'd rather not lose.
Re:If AMD Dies... (Score:0, Interesting)
Intel is already years ahead of AMD. They have well over 80% market share in the PC market and over 90% in the server and workstation market...
Gee, that's nice for them. Too bad in another few years there will be no such dominant animal as the "PC". It can and likely will be replaced by the ever-growing tablet and smartphone environment, which as the article has nicely pointed out, Qualcomm is dominating quite well in.
As far as multi-threaded, multi-core performance, well chances are that will live solely within the server market in the future as they look towards massive virtualization efforts, which is about the only thing left truly driving CPU architecture...unless you actually somehow think you really are going to maximize that i7 processor you have now. 99% of people I know don't even come close, which is yet another reason Intel may be dominated by other architectures. The average computer simply no longer has the CPU demands anymore, regardless of what Intel is trying to shove down our throats. Hardware caught up and surpassed software demands in that space LONG ago (as evidenced by the 5-year old systems that are still plenty capable of running the latest OS and productivity packages).
Re:Qualcomm is but a shadow of AMD (Score:3, Interesting)
In AMD's defence - CPU speed doesn't actually matter that much. This is one of those odd quirks of where we are in the software - hardware cycles. A good GPU will likely have *much* more impact on your noticeable computer performance than a 10% faster CPU. It's really bad form to release a brand new CPU that is actually slower than your old one (clock for clock, in absolute terms, etc.) and the tech press pounced on them for it. But AMD *could* have and should have made the argument probably correctly that you're better off with an AMD Fusion product than an Intel i5 with on chip piece of shit HD graphics 3000 from intel. Granted intel has improved a lot now that they've given up on Larrabee but their HD graphics chips are still horrible compared to what AMD (ATI) can bring to the table.
I will point out that it was AMD's ARM SoC lineup (which they Acquired from ATI) that Qualcomm is actually doing this with, because Qualcomm bought the whole ARM SoC business from AMD where they were leading the competition. So sure, they aren't doing anything the other guys aren't but they were at the forefront with SoC when they still had the ARM business.
Re:If AMD Dies... (Score:4, Interesting)
No, they do it in large part because Intel has engaged in some pretty obnoxious antitrust violations over the last decade or so and got what's barely a slap on the wrist. AMD for it's part did some really stupid stuff as well, but it's hard to make a profit when your competitor is paying systems integrators not to use your products.
Also, while most folks here seem to be on the AMD is walking dead meme, the fact of the matter is that Intel can't afford for AMD to go out of business any more than MS could have afforded Apple to go out of business during the '90s. If it really does get to that point, you'll see Intel laying off for a while to let AMD catch up.
The big problem that AMD has right now is old debt and an inability to produce enough chips to satisfy demand. That's not something that's generally true of chips that are being sold for the maximum price people will pay.
Re:If AMD Dies... (Score:1, Interesting)
No, they do it in large part because Intel has engaged in some pretty obnoxious antitrust violations over the last decade or so and got what's barely a slap on the wrist.
Right. If not for EVIL INTEL they could sell their chips for much more money even though Intel's are superior in almost every respect. The only reason I could see for buying AMD would be if I wanted a cheap CPU with a mildly capable GPU, such as the low end of the laptop market which AMD now pretty much seem to own.
The big problem that AMD has right now is old debt and an inability to produce enough chips to satisfy demand. That's not something that's generally true of chips that are being sold for the maximum price people will pay.
It's something that's generally true of poorly run companies. If you're right, AMD should just increase the price of their chips, and they'll be able to sell all they make even though Intel's are better. Why wouldn't they do that if people are prepared to pay more?
Re:If AMD Dies... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a lot more complicated than that. photolithography is a very complex process. As dies shrink due to a smaller nodal size it becomes increasingly more difficult to fabricate a single chip until that process matures.
All 150+ 4/6/8 core Sandybridge processors were sourced from only 5 different chips with 2/4/8 cores a piece and varying amounts of cache. The yield on the 8 cores is low even on the mature 32nm process so they demand a huge price premium. Those with defective cores have some disabled and are sold as 6 core variants.
Since defects are fairly consistent per wafer, yields on a 200mm^2 Sandybridge are exponentially higher than they are on a ~400mm^2 Sandybridge. The same is true for Ivybridge. I'm not sure if Intels 22nm process has matured enough to make 8 core Ivybridge processors economically feasible quite yet. Thus, 220mm^2 yields on Intel's 32nm process may be comparable or even higher than 160mm^2 yields on Intel's 22nm process.
TSMC's 28nm process was backlogged for quite some time due to low yields. The GTX680 was unavailable for the longest time because it required that a large chip be fabricated with no defects, the GTX670 which came later allowed for part of the chip to be disabled, thus increasing yields. AMD had the same problem with their HD 7000 series, low yields on the top end processors reduced their ability to ship those processors. Fortunately for them they had a stripped down version (HD 7950) ready to go at the same time rather than months later.
Intel is a remarkably conservative company. They're not known for announcing a product unless they know that they can make it available and thus it doesn't make sense to introduce an 8 core Ivybridge processor unless they know that they can actually deliver it. This is why the Sandybridge-E processors came around much later, and the same will be true for Ivybridge-E
Maybe Qualcomm is the new Intel (not AMD) (Score:5, Interesting)
Contrary to multiple postings on this thread, Qualcomm designs it's own ARM compatible CPUs (they call the latest version Krait) via an architecture licence from ARM. That's pretty make Qualcomm somewhat like the old-AMD designed it's own x86 compatible CPUs via an architecture license from Intel. However, the new-AMD licences their x86-64 architecture to Intel which designs it's own CPUs (arguably better than AMD).
On the other hand, Qualcomm acts alot like Intel in the cell-phone space. They use their patents on CDMA and other wireless communications and their first generation 4G-LTE modem/radio to bully cell-phone manufactuers into using Qualcomm SOC chipsets very similar to they way that Intel uses their CPUs to bully computer manufacturers into using Intel chipsets. They have been known to threaten to use bundling, bulk pricing, and even limited availability tricks on other low-end high-volume phone product lines to convince cell phone designers to use their chipsets. Thus you see even Samsung is forced to use Qualcomm SOC chipsets even though they make their own Exynos SOC. This makes them definitey not-like the new AMD in this sense.
Re:If AMD Dies... (Score:5, Interesting)
So let's discuss alternatives. Say AMD goes down. What are my options as a consumer in, say, five years if I want to avoid Intel, but want all the horsepower I can get my hands on for a desktop workstation? I really don't thing it's going to be Qualcomm, if they're targeting low-wattage mobile devices. Are there any other CPU manufacturers who are positioned to step into that market?
Re:If AMD Dies... (Score:4, Interesting)
The Ivy Bridge processors are not a good example (Score:3, Interesting)
The pricing is, but not the CPUs. The problem is there is a finite amount of 22nm capacity. Right now Intel has only one 22nm fab online. They are in the process of converting their fab in Israel to 22nm, but right now the one in Chandler is it.
That being the case, there is only so much they can choose to produce on that process, and what they are choosing to do is mainstream desktop and laptop processors. They've changed their strategy from using the newest process to the highest end parts first to using it for more mainstream parts, and then moving it in to high end.
You also can't just say "Well build more capacity!" as not only are they doing that, but it takes a long time (you don't order this stuff online and install it in a day) and costs a ton of money.
I fully agree that Intel reams people on prices because they can. I mean their low end i5 is as good as AMD's top end Bulldozer for most things. However supply issues are something else. They have to choose what chips to produce in their fabs, and only certain fabs are at certain levels.
You also can't hate on Intel for their fab investment. They pump more money in to fab technology than anyone else (hence are nearly always a node ahead) and they build most of them in the US. They are really big on R&D and it pays off.
Re:If AMD Dies... (Score:1, Interesting)
Have you looked at Intel CPU prices lately? It hasn't been this bad since the Pentium II times.
I agree. You are quoting a retail CPU. It's even worse in the server market, especially if you want many cores. We recently required a 32 CPU machine (single thread performance was not vitally important).
Suitable CPUs were:
1x16 Core AMD Interlagos: about 500 Euro
1x8 Core Intel Sandy-Bridge EP about 1000 Euro.
I know that people are going to say: but hey, single thread performance and Hyper Threading are going to make up for it. But that's not true: There is NO Intel CPU below 1000 Euro we could put into the system. There simply is no equivalent. It's a similar situation as with Apple: They make high-end products and people justify the price with it. That doesn't help the people who search for a low cost option.