Intel tries to distract by "finishing the design" of a 7nm chip in Q2 2021

[sounds]

 

 

Summary

Intel announces a flurry of new things, none of which are products you can buy.

 

Quotes

Quote

• Two new fabs in Arizona, $20b investment
• New Intel Foundry Services, offering Intel manufacturing to customers
• Next generation 7nm chiplets for ‘Meteor Lake’ will finish design in Q2 2021
• New research collaboration with IBM in foundational semiconductor design
• New Intel Innovation event in Oct 2021, Spirit of IDF

 

My thoughts

Intel admits there will be no improvements in 2021 for their 14nm products such as Rocket Lake.

 

Sources

https://www.anandtech.com/show/16573/intels-new-strategy-20b-for-two-fabs-meteor-lake-7nm-tiles-new-foundry-services-ibm-collaboration-return-of-idf

[WhitetailAni]

1. @FakeNSA, there's something new around you!
2. Intel is trying to be TSMC? I hope it works out for them.

3. If it fails, they'll have great puns.

"Intel's Meteor Lake CPUs explode on impact"

"Meteor Lake has trouble staying in the air"

etc.

 

So Rocket Lake was pointless after all.

[AbydosOne]

2 hours ago, sounds said:

New Intel Foundry Services

I so hope AMD buys time on it, just to spite them.

 

(though with IP being the way it is, they probably won't touch it with a 10 foot pole)

[sounds]

Intel is apparently willing to let other people submit their IP to Intel so that Intel can produce more 14nm chips. (Or 10nm or 7nm if you are willing to wait for your order to arrive in 2023.)

 

The very first comment on anandtech sums it up: "The article mentions potentially giving IBM access to Intel processes, but I can't imagine IBM is in a great hurry to have its processors manufactured by a direct competitor."

[Taf the Ghost]

Intel has a lot of older capacity which could go to a lot of products in the general silicon industry. That's actually a good thing.

 

A Q2 2021 design completion means a 2023 product, maybe, when it comes to Intel. So, it's something. But Intel needs to actually deliver on the 7nm node. It's their first EUV node, so volume is a big question.

[sounds]

Just now, Taf the Ghost said:

volume is a big question.

10nm was always used as the "just around the corner" promise to keep customers buying 14nm.

 

It's reasonable to be skeptical of Intel's press releases after all their benchmark stunts, undelivered 10nm promises, and lies.

[Taf the Ghost]

2 minutes ago, sounds said:

10nm was always used as the "just around the corner" promise to keep customers buying 14nm.

 

It's reasonable to be skeptical of Intel's press releases after all their benchmark stunts, undelivered 10nm promises, and lies.

7nm was always going to be a massively different process from 10nm. The issue is EUV machines are notorious for volume. An issue that's hit TSMC and Samsung, and a cost issue that convinced GloFo to give up. Intel's 7nm is their first EUV node (they also apparently have more EUV machines than anyone else). So we simply have to wait and see.

 

Intel, hopefully, has better management & direction on their nodes after the 10nm disaster.

[handymanshandle]

I mean we're getting nitpicky over process size but the differences at least in gaming between at least 10th gen (10700K and Ryzen 7 3700X) aren't that huge. I mean in some games the Intel part comes out ahead.

 

That being said, I like AMD. I've been around them more or less at least since the mid 2000s Athlon x2/Athlon 64 x2 days, and Ryzen is good but the Ryzen fanbase annoys me to no bounds and only jumped ship once Ryzen was shown to be such a hit, to the point that I would probably get an Intel chip when I do my next build.

My most recent AMD computers have had: A8 4500M, A8 6410, A10 9600P, and Ryzen 7 1700...

[porina]

1 hour ago, sounds said:

Intel announces a flurry of new things, none of which are products you can buy.

It wasn't a product launch event.

 

1 hour ago, sounds said:

Intel admits there will be no improvements in 2021 for their 14nm products such as Rocket Lake.

That is some odd wording. It is obvious there will not be "improved" 14nm products after Rocket Lake, as Rocket Lake is expected to be the last mainstream desktop CPU on 14nm. So there is nothing to improve on 14nm beyond that. The improvement will be the 10nm Alder Lake offering, which I'm not aware of any indication of timeline other than previous statement it was an end of 2021 product for both desktop and mobile. Of course based on their recent history I wouldn't rule out delays, with a possible outcome being they'll prioritise mobile and push desktop into early 2022.

 

1 hour ago, Taf the Ghost said:

A Q2 2021 design completion means a 2023 product, maybe, when it comes to Intel. So, it's something. But Intel needs to actually deliver on the 7nm node. It's their first EUV node, so volume is a big question.

The source article says it will be a 2023 volume product. Will be interesting to see how the Alder Lake timeline works out as that might give better indication to Meteor Lake as its successor. Also consider it is Foveros based, so not all parts of the design may be made on the same process, and that might allow Intel to better utilise available manufacturing resource.

[Vishera]

2 hours ago, sounds said:

7nm chiplets

Déjà vu (AMD from 2019)

2 hours ago, sounds said:

Meteor Lake

Why the hell Intel's naming scheme is so bad?

2 hours ago, sounds said:

IBM

I hope they come back to the PC market,IBM have been exiled from the PC market for way too long.

You can buy an IBM processor for a server,but for desktop there is only one vendor that sells these with ATX motherboards (Raptor Computing Systems)

Also they need to work out a solution for the difference in instruction set support on Windows (they could avoid it,but loose the chance to put their hand on market share)

2 hours ago, sounds said:

Spirit of IDF

Intel Defense Forces?

[Sarra]

38 minutes ago, porina said:

It wasn't a product launch event.

It was Intel trying to stay relevant. And just like Rocket Lake, sucking hard at it.

 

38 minutes ago, porina said:

That is some odd wording. It is obvious there will not be "improved" 14nm products after Rocket Lake, as Rocket Lake is expected to be the last mainstream desktop CPU on 14nm.

God, I hope so. If there's another 14nm CPU from Intel... I'm SO glad I was able to get a 3900XT, I think I would have been 'happy' with an i9 9900k, but dang. The 10900k and 11900k just... No appeal.

 

40 minutes ago, porina said:

The improvement will be the 10nm Alder Lake offering, which I'm not aware of any indication of timeline other than previous statement it was an end of 2021 product for both desktop and mobile.

With silicon shortages, it probably will be a 2022 or even 2023 product launch. But, who knows. By the time Alder Lake will launch, I will have hopefully replaced 3 Intel systems with 3 AMD systems.

 

I'm not an AMD fan. I've had Intel for the longest time. Everything after the 9000 series just... Wasn't worth it. The 'You need a new chipset every upgrade cycle!' thing got old, and it was what kept me from really upgrading my 4000 series i5 to anything other than a 4000 series equivalent Xeon. I know AM4 is EOL now, but I don't care at this point, I have no intention of upgrading past 5950X anyway.

[FakeNSA]

2 hours ago, FakeKGB said:

1. @FakeNSA, there's something new around you!
2. Intel is trying to be TSMC? I hope it works out for them.

3. If it fails, they'll have great puns.

"Intel's Meteor Lake CPUs explode on impact"

"Meteor Lake has trouble staying in the air"

etc.

 

So Rocket Lake was pointless after all.

Yep!

It's made the news a few times, actually (Intel already has massive investment in the valley, so it makes since to throw more in)

 

Might get to work there after I graduate!

[Sarra]

Just now, Vishera said:

Intel Defense Forces?

Introducing, the most incompetent army ever! Yay!

 

They'll shoot you, but they will have to charge you first.

 

They have 10 magazines full of rounds, but each is a different caliber, so they have to switch guns, too!

[Vishera]

1 minute ago, Sarra said:

They have 10 magazines full of rounds, but each is a different caliber, so they have to switch guns, too!

What nm are the rounds?,also are they FinFET or SuperFIN?

[FakeNSA]

Just now, Vishera said:

What nm are the rounds?,also are they FinFET or SuperFIN?

SuperFIN Stabilized Discarding-crosspoint Tracer ammunition.

[Sarra]

1 minute ago, Vishera said:

What nm are the rounds?,also are they FinFET or SuperFIN?

They're all blanks.

[Vishera]

3 minutes ago, Sarra said:

They're all blanks.

Just like the 11900K and the 11700K.

[Sarra]

Just now, Vishera said:

Just like the 11900K.

Zing!

[lostcattears]

Wait 7nm? What happened to 10nm? so are they trying to go with the same story our 7nm is as dense is tsmc's 5nm again?

[CommanderAlex]

1 hour ago, lostcattears said:

Wait 7nm? What happened to 10nm? so are they trying to go with the same story our 7nm is as dense is tsmc's 5nm again?

10nm is still in Intel's pipeline, they aren't skipping over it entirely. Their 7nm process still has a long way to go before we start seeing mass produced chips just yet, I'll leave this down below from the article. 

Quote

Pat Gelsinger will be stating today that the 7nm manufacturing node from Intel is now running on schedule, with a solid footing. The first product enabled with 7nm will be Ponte Vecchio, the upcoming high-performance compute accelerator for the Aurora supercomputer, however end-users might be more interested in Meteor Lake, a client CPU compute tile for a volume 2023 product. Intel will announce today that the compute tile / chiplet will finish tape-in (design IP verification) by Q2 2021, and will leverage Intel’s advanced packaging techniques. After design manufacturing, tape-out (whole chip design verification) usually takes 4-6+ months, and then the designs are sent to the fabs for initial production and test runs.

Still a long time from now, Intel will be releasing Alder Lake on 10nm SuperFIN supposedly 2H 2021 and they'll probably have a successor sometime next year, with 7nm beginning in 2023. 

 

You do realize the manufacturing node size is different across the semiconductor industry right??? Every semiconductor fabrication plant measures their transistors (gates I believe, if I'm not mistaken) differently. 

[D13H4RD]

This is really more of an announcement regarding the manufacturing and roadmap side of things. It's not nearly as exciting as a product launch but it's no less important because it shows where the company is headed. 

 

Both the announcement of new fabs in Arizona alongside the opening of Intel's manufacturing to customers are what I see as potentially good things considering the issues with foundries like TSMC in dealing with massive demand. I think tech as a whole is waking up to the reality that maybe, just maybe, we've been too reliant on TSMC for manufacturing. 

 

And I know someone's gonna say "7nm in 2023? LMAO, AMD'S BEEN ON 7NM SINCE 2019 KEKEKE", so I'm just going to say what everyone else has said; You can't compare different manufacturing nodes simply by the nanometer figure. Just like how Samsung 8nm is significantly different from TSMC 7nm despite what the nm figure suggests, Intel's 7nm is going to be very different from TSMC 7nm, being closer in density to TSMC's 5nm node. 

[Brooksie359]

6 hours ago, pinksnowbirdie said:

I mean we're getting nitpicky over process size but the differences at least in gaming between at least 10th gen (10700K and Ryzen 7 3700X) aren't that huge. I mean in some games the Intel part comes out ahead.

 

That being said, I like AMD. I've been around them more or less at least since the mid 2000s Athlon x2/Athlon 64 x2 days, and Ryzen is good but the Ryzen fanbase annoys me to no bounds and only jumped ship once Ryzen was shown to be such a hit, to the point that I would probably get an Intel chip when I do my next build.

My most recent AMD computers have had: A8 4500M, A8 6410, A10 9600P, and Ryzen 7 1700...

Thats great that Intel still is somewhat competitive in gaming but that not what makes Intel being stuck on 14nm so bad. Smaller nodes generally are more efficient than larger ones and you can clearly see that when comparing Intel cpus power consumption vs ryzen. Its not even close as Intel has power consumption that is way higher than the ryzen counterpart. Sure some gamers might not care but I for one would if the parts are basically neck and neck in performance. I mean why would I want a chip that runs hotter if I can get one that runs cooler and has the same performance? Its going to bite Intel in the ass if they don't figure their stuff out. 

[dundundundun]

what's with the title

this is clearly not a product launch, more like a conference; did anyone expect intel to release 7 nm chips in this event?

[Sarra]

2 minutes ago, dundundundun said:

did anyone expect intel to release 7 nm chips in this event?

Well, I sure didn't expect them to release anything in any event. At least, for once, I wasn't disappointed.

[kakik09]

So Intel is confirmed to go ahead with their own chiplet design? That's news to me.