Intel rebrands process names, provides process roadmap

[porina]

Quotes

Quote

 In today’s Intel Accelerated event, the company is driving a stake into the ground regarding where it wants to be by 2025. CEO Pat Gelsinger earlier this year stated that Intel would be returning to product leadership in 2025, but hasn’t yet explained how this is coming about – that is until today, where Intel has disclosed its roadmap for its next five generations of process node technology leading to 2025. Intel believes it can follow an aggressive strategy to match and pass its foundry rivals, while at the same time developing new packaging offerings and starting a foundry business for external customers. On top of all this, Intel has renamed its process nodes. 

Sources

https://www.anandtech.com/show/16823/intel-accelerated-offensive-process-roadmap-updates-to-10nm-7nm-4nm-3nm-20a-18a-packaging-foundry-emib-foveros

 

 

Summary

Intel will use a new naming system for their process technology going forwards. 10nm SuperFin remains as that is in the market already. What was previous referred to as 10nm Enhanced SuperFin will be renamed as Intel 7. Beyond that, what was previously referred to as Intel 7nm will be Intel 4. They also lay out expected nodes beyond that brining us to the 2nd part. This is now a roadmap to where they think they will be in process technology going forward and looking to retake process leadership in 2025. This coincides with expected availability of updated EUV High-NA machines from ASML which Intel are said to get the first deliveries, and give them some possible time advantage over those without.

 

My thoughts

Intel have said they want to regain leadership and we now finally have a roadmap to how they hope to achieve that. If they can execute this will remain to be seen, or will competitors like TSMC be able to keep in front? The name change brings them more into line with what Samsung and TSMC are doing in marketing towards the less technically aware, and addresses that imbalance. Those more knowledgeable are already aware that the relationship between stated nanometre dimensions and physical performance has diverged, and are not directly comparable between different foundries. Intel's next generation CPU for both desktop and mobile, Alder Lake, is expected towards end of year. It will be the first chance to see how well they are really doing. For the desktop, it will bring more than a generational process node and microarchitecture advancement from current CPUs.

[Kilrah]

Intel 4 = "Full use of EUV"

Intel 3 = "Increased use of EUV"

 

So they can use more than "Full"? 

[porina]

1 minute ago, Kilrah said:

Intel 4 = "Full use of EUV"

Intel 3 = "Increased use of EUV"

 

So they can use more than "Full"? 

Maybe they got it from USB organisation, where you have full speed, going up to high speed, and super speed... likewise in display resolutions, Full HD is 1080p, and we can go up from there with ever more weird combinations of letters.

[WereCat]

5 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

Intel 4 = "Full use of EUV"

Intel 3 = "Increased use of EUV"

 

So they can use more than "Full"? 

Full use = anime villain equivalent of "You can't defeat me!"

Increased use = "Now you made me use my full power!"

[BuckGup]

So 7nm is not 4nm? What's the 20 in 20A stand for?

[tikker]

11 minutes ago, BuckGup said:

So 7nm is not 4nm? What's the 20 in 20A stand for?

20 Amps. Next-gen will blow your mind (and your fusebox).

 

On a serious note, according to a Dutch article and the slide lol the A here refers to Angstrom (10x smaller than a nanometer), so another new process size I guess?

[DeScruff]

Does Intel name anything in a simple to understand way?
 

Not sure I understand where you get "4" from 7nm, and "3" from 7nm+
Or where 20A comes from unless the processors use 20 Amps. - I know it states "Ångström" but if 10 Ångström = 1nm, then shouldn't 20 Ångström be... 2nm? when in this case its 5nm?

[aisle9]

I sure hope the guys designing their architecture are a whole lot better at their jobs than the guys naming it.

[tikker]

2 minutes ago, DeScruff said:

Does Intel name anything in a simple to understand way?
 

Not sure I understand where you get "4" from 7nm, and "3" from 7nm+
Or where 20A comes from unless the processors use 20 Amps. - I know it states "Ångström" but if 10 Ångström = 1nm, then shouldn't 20 Ångström be... 2nm? when in this case its 5nm?

Angstrom sounds cooler than nm. It's how unit marketing goes (even in science :P), as soon as you can express it in a not that ridiculous number of the next smaller quantitiy you choose that.

[aisle9]

2 minutes ago, tikker said:

Angstrom sounds cooler than nm. It's how unit marketing goes (even in science :P), as soon as you can express it in a not that ridiculous number of the next smaller quantitiy you choose that.

"Three billion computations per Planck Time."

[ARikozuM]

RibbonFET? 

 

Bring on the lace, Intel! Let's waifu that CPU!

[Blue4130]

Calling a cpu something else because you can't match the competition.... Right out of amd's playbook. (2500+ or i586 anyone) 

 

Well done intel. 

[Forbidden Wafer]

43 minutes ago, BuckGup said:

So 7nm is not 4nm? What's the 20 in 20A stand for?

Their market share loss to AMD?

[BuckGup]

23 minutes ago, Blue4130 said:

Calling a cpu something else because you can't match the competition.... Right out of amd's playbook. (2500+ or i586 anyone) 

 

Well done intel. 

Yeah it's really stupid. Anyone who knows about the technology will see right through it and anyone who doesn't it didn't matter in the first place. 

[givingtnt]

Intel: "HOWNDO WE GET 7 FASTER !?"

Intel marketing rep: "What if we called something different 7 and made a lower number the new 7 ?"

 

Intel: THIS DO THIS

[Forbidden Wafer]

It seems they really got mad with those 14nm+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ jokes.

[Kisai]

2 hours ago, porina said:

Maybe they got it from USB organisation, where you have full speed, going up to high speed, and super speed... likewise in display resolutions, Full HD is 1080p, and we can go up from there with ever more weird combinations of letters.

Nah, do you remember "PR" numbers from AMD or Cyrix to show their "Pentium equivalent" when their chips ran faster, hotter, but less efficient?

 

I think this is actually a disservice. Sure stop calling them by the NM node, but this needs to be measured in transistors/mm in a 2d plane, not by arbitrary marketing trash.

 

[ouroesa]

11 minutes ago, Kisai said:

Nah, do you remember "PR" numbers from AMD or Cyrix to show their "Pentium equivalent" when their chips ran faster, hotter, but less efficient?

 

I think this is actually a disservice. Sure stop calling them by the NM node, but this needs to be measured in transistors/mm in a 2d plane, not by arbitrary marketing trash.

 

Agreed but what happens when they start stacking chips? IIRC AMD is already starting to do this. Or are you purely referring to the production architecture?

[porina]

1 hour ago, Blue4130 said:

Calling a cpu something else because you can't match the competition.... Right out of amd's playbook. (2500+ or i586 anyone) 

 

Well done intel. 

Yes, Intel has copied the competition in this case. They are now using a similar numbering scale to TSMC and Samsung.

 

57 minutes ago, BuckGup said:

Yeah it's really stupid. Anyone who knows about the technology will see right through it and anyone who doesn't it didn't matter in the first place. 

How is it stupid that Intel are now doing exactly the same trick Samsung and TSMC are? This will primarily be for the benefit of those not in the tech know how, so they wont be mislead by differences in numerical value which were not comparable, but sound like they could be. Those that truly understand wont be affected at all by this.

 

2 minutes ago, Kisai said:

I think this is actually a disservice. Sure stop calling them by the NM node, but this needs to be measured in transistors/mm in a 2d plane, not by arbitrary marketing trash.

"nm" process values have NOT been directly related to a physical measure of the process for a long time. It is essentially nothing more than a marketing number. The only thing that just happened is Intel is now using the same marketing tricks that Samsung and TSMC have done for much longer. If you think the nm is directly related to some physical aspect that can be compared, please point out exactly what it is.

 

The nearest thing you might come up with to have a comparison across different fabs is transistor density, but even that will be flawed as you can bias the designs towards performance or efficiency, and it can vary a lot depending on what design you implement e.g. DRAM vs logic.

[Arika]

glad to see no one actually read the article, and just did what they always do when Intel is involved.

 

Quote

one element of renaming the nodes is due to matching parity with other foundry offerings. Both TSMC and Samsung, competitors to Intel, were using smaller numbers to compare similar density processes.

Quote

This isn't Intel pulling the wool over your eyes, or trying to hide a bad situation. This is Intel catching up to the rest of the industry in how these processes are named. To add to this, it's a good thing that Intel is only renaming future nodes that haven't reached the market yet.

 

[DexterSmythe]

Intel 4 being 7nm seems more than a little misleading.

[Elisis]

13 minutes ago, DexterSmythe said:

Intel 4 being 7nm seems more than a little misleading.

As does the "nm" nomenclature as a whole, to be fair.

[DexterSmythe]

52 minutes ago, Elisis said:

As does the "nm" nomenclature as a whole, to be fair.

Fair point. Intel and AMD do measure it differently and there is no industry standard for "nm"s.

[WhitetailAni]

AMD marketing plan:
"We have new Zen architecture. How do we name future ones?"
"Zen
Zen+
Zen 2
Zen 3
Zen 3+
Zen 4
Zen 5
Easy to follow along, the + moniker means it's not a completely new revision, just a modification"

"Full marks, good job"

Intel marketing plan:
"We need to make our nm numbers fancy. How do we do this?"
"10nm = 7

7nm = 4

7nm = 3
2nm = 20A"
"It sounds futuristic, therefore we do this plan"

Cyrix marketing plan:
"*static noises*"

[Arika]

6 minutes ago, FakeKGB said:

AMD marketing plan:

Intel marketing plan:

Architecture names =/= Fabrication process

 

AMD also don't get to name their fab process, TSMC does.