Intel revisits 22nm amidst 14nm shortage

[Coaxialgamer]

So it's no secret that intel has been facing shortages on their 14nm node. A few weeks ago, we heard HP was recommending EPYC servers to mitigate shortages for their customers, and more recently we even heard that Intel might be outsourcing some production to rival TSMC. 

But Intel isn't done mitigating shortages, so now they plan to return to 22nm for their non-critical and low margin hardware, in this case the h310 chipset. 

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Struggling to keep up 14nm wafer supply due to its 10nm train wreck, Intel is taking the first measures to stave off the silicon shortage, it seems. Intel has picked a high-volume silicon part to manufacture on a different process, and is currently in the first stages of shipping out the chipset.

 

Having undertaken the first step of dialing back volume silicon to the 22nm node, relieving the tight supply on 14nm silicon, the first chipset going "big" is the H310. The decision is quite understandable as the original H310 is the simplest and lowest-end chipset for Intel's 8th (and 9th, we're told) generation Core CPUs, and is used extensively in a high-volume of office and consumer PCs, due to the lower requirements for on-board communications and limited expansibility. It's cheap and cheerful and it's taking up 14nm capacity which Intel cannot afford.

 

 

 

 

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According to sources in China, the first offspring of this decision is dubbed the H310C chipset, depicted below. 

 

(22nm H310C on the left, 14nm h310 on the right) 

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The H310C chipset carries sSpec SRCXT and reportedly measures 10mm x 7mm, while the 14nm H310 (sSpec SRCXY) measures just 8.5mm x 6.5mm. The original H310 design was rated for 6W TDP, but this is not expected to change much, or impact OEM designs at any stage. In fact, it might bring more options to system manufacturers as, in an unlikely side-effect of the current state of driver development, this also means Intel is bringing back support for Windows 7 on H310C.

Source: https://www.techspot.com/news/76536-intel-forced-return-22nm-manufacturing.html

[bleedblue]

HASWELL LIVES

 

 

 

But seriously, by low-end do they mean just the pentiums and celerons of the world or does this affect i3's as well?

[Dabombinable]

Intel used to do this in the past, so no big surprise.

[Dylanc1500]

1 minute ago, bleedblue said:

HASWELL LIVES

 

 

 

But seriously, by low-end do they mean just the pentiums and celerons of the world or does this affect i3's as well?

It's the H310 chipset right now.

[Sakkura]

Face, meet palm.

[MMKing]

4 minutes ago, bleedblue said:

HASWELL LIVES

 

 

 

But seriously, by low-end do they mean just the pentiums and celerons of the world or does this affect i3's as well?

C-H-I-P-S-E-T

https://ark.intel.com/products/133348/Intel-H310-Chipset

 

It's the ''non central processing unit'' within the computer that handles USB, Ethernet etc.

[Rune]

this also means Intel is bringing back support for Windows 7 on H310C

Damnit. Just die already.

[Arika]

yep, i foresee this thread being level headed and not turn into a shitshow at all

[ScratchCat]

I thought they always did this:

- One fab is upgraded to 10nm

- One fab produces the high margin/critical products (14nm+++...)

- One fab produces chipsets on the older, high yield node (22nm)

 

When did this change?

[WMGroomAK]

At least it's their lowest end chipset silicon that they are transitioning back with...  Can see a lot of pre-built office machines using this (such as Dell's & HP's enterprise lineup).  

[jiyeon]

Lisa Su is resting in an armchair sipping on whiskey right now reading the article.

[PlayStation 2]

AMD_rn:

[Bigman397]

29 minutes ago, Coaxialgamer said:

 this also means Intel is bringing back support for Windows 7 on H310C.

 

Extending Win7 support into newer chipsets/cpus is the main focus of the H310c, the fab is a convenient side-effect. Still a lot of software for the kiosk and embedded markets that can't make the switch to win8 or win10 for various reason.

[pas008]

19 minutes ago, ScratchCat said:

I thought they always did this:

- One fab is upgraded to 10nm

- One fab produces the high margin/critical products (14nm+++...)

- One fab produces chipsets on the older, high yield node (22nm)

 

When did this change?

Prolly using fab on quantum

5 per week i guess here

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.techspot.com/amp/news/75020-intel-now-capable-producing-full-silicon-wafers-quantum.html

[ScratchCat]

10 minutes ago, pas008 said:

Prolly using fab on quantum

5 per week i guess here

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.techspot.com/amp/news/75020-intel-now-capable-producing-full-silicon-wafers-quantum.html

Quantum computing will not replace conventional processors in client computing possibly ever, not in the next decade and certainly not in a timeframe where Intel is putting other products in danger to setup the fab.

 

5 wafers is virtually nothing compared to what Intel produces each day.

[MMKing]

Previous rumors seem to be incorrect.

https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20180910PD210.html

 

We now know the rumors were incorrect, but that does not mean the idea was not real within Intel. How serious TSMC ever was as an option will likely never be known, if it was ever an option that is. But as i pointed out in the thread, it makes little sense to outsource chipset production for such a short period.

[dizmo]

1 hour ago, ScratchCat said:

I thought they always did this:

- One fab is upgraded to 10nm

- One fab produces the high margin/critical products (14nm+++...)

- One fab produces chipsets on the older, high yield node (22nm)

 

When did this change?

It didn't. They were planning to have 10nm out, so the chipsets would be produced on the older 14nm node.
Yet, that didn't happen. So they have both chipsets and chips on the same node, which is too straining on their resources.

[BuckGup]

Now only if AMD had the IPC

[Misanthrope]

Hate to be pessimistic but if Intel is in this much trouble to keep up we might be at the end of having a company like them: that designs and fabricates too. I think no more companies after them, and probably not them, are going to continue or develop plans to keep in-house fabs and just let other companies take those risks: they can probably have better margins with some other products that aren't as complex as CPUs so for them is a matter of getting their RoI back quicker with the simpler chips that ask for quite the volume and such.

[GlobalPentahedron Corp]

So what you are saying is we can get 8 bonus nms for free

[SpaceGhostC2C]

14 minutes ago, Misanthrope said:

Hate to be pessimistic but if Intel is in this much trouble to keep up we might be at the end of having a company like them: that designs and fabricates too. 

I wouldn't call that pessimistic.

[pas008]

4 hours ago, ScratchCat said:

Quantum computing will not replace conventional processors in client computing possibly ever, not in the next decade and certainly not in a timeframe where Intel is putting other products in danger to setup the fab.

 

5 wafers is virtually nothing compared to what Intel produces each day.

Lol seriously who said about replacing anything

They are using fab time up on these

Is it that hard to understand?

 

[Stefan Payne]

2 hours ago, BuckGup said:

Now only if AMD had the IPC

They have.

Only the Clockrate is a bit lacking because they are using a Low Power Process, not a High Performance one like Intel is.

[yian88]

haha lol intel is now going backwards in fabrication tech,

[Master Disaster]

Things keep getting worse for Intel, oh how the mighty have fallen.