AMD's 45nm technology compared against Intel's
in [Chips]
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From: Robert Myers on 20 Dec 2008 00:26 On Dec 20, 12:04 am, Yousuf Khan <bbb...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > Robert Myers wrote: > > I don't admire AMD and Microsoft and I've said why over and over and > > over again. Intel would be a case study in just how many things you > > can do wrong and still stay on top of the heap. IBM is IBM. Without > > IBM, Linux would have no credible future. > > If one of the Intel cases studies of what you can do wrong is about how > to use your ill-gotten monopoly powers to bully customers and > competitors, then I agree. > Read the thread in comp.arch about garbage in, garbage out, especially what Lynn Wheeler has posted. There aren't many saints in business or politics. I'm sure that if I *worked* for Intel, I would loathe it. Robert.
From: Robert Redelmeier on 20 Dec 2008 06:06 In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips Yousuf Khan <bbbl67(a)yahoo.com> wrote in part: > If one of the Intel cases studies of what you can do wrong > is about how to use your ill-gotten monopoly powers to > bully customers and competitors, then I agree. Although I like AMD, that doesn't make me hate Intel. They've just done some stupid things that their large size enables them to survive. I do not think Intel's misbehaviour has approached that of IBM, let alone Microsoft. Respectfully, I do not believe that Intel acquired its' monopoly by illegal means. At critical junctures, they just out-competed. Monopolies themselves are _not_ illegal, but finding yourself with one (and AMD may also qualify) does mean certain behaviours are prohibited under US law. Sure, some Intel offices did some illegal things, but I believe this is a local matter and not a matter of corporate policy. Certainly Intel HQ was quite contrite towards the US DoJ when challenged. Contrast MS (take us to court) or IBM (we'll talk but lawyer you to death). What specific actions do you consider Intel "bullying"? A certain amount of pressure is normal in business. The most persistant oddity has been the Dell sole-source, but I'm confident the DoJ has been all over those agreements. -- Robert R
From: Robert Myers on 21 Dec 2008 13:18 On Dec 21, 1:12 am, Yousuf Khan <bbb...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > I did not start this thread to discuss Intel's legal issues or business > practices, it was supposed to be about Intel's manufacturing technology, > but as usual it's gone off-kilter. So anyways, let me get my two cents > in about the original technological argument before we send it back to > legal and business issues. > > As you'll recall, Intel announced its 45nm process with HKMG (High-K, > Metal Gates) to great fanfare. Various websites and forums proclaimed it > an amazing achievement. Well, the standard AMD 45nm SOI without HKMG > process seems to be superior to Intel's, as they are seeing lower power > and thermal requirements at the low-end, and higher overclockability at > the high-end. AMD will be adding HKMG later on in the 45nm process too, > but so far it looks unnecessary. > Intel has done many things over the years (keeping the controller off the die, killing Alpha, sticking with a front-side bus, NetBurst, hyperthreading, not using SOI) that have occasioned critical comment. There is always information missing from those discussions, which is that Intel almost always has good business reasons for doing what it does. Its judgment may be faulty, but the key is that *you do not have access to those reasons*. The one piece of information that is available (stock price) indicates that, whatever missteps Intel may have made, it's business judgment (as judged by markets) has proven to be superior to AMD's. The situation with AMD has become so dire that it almost seems pointless to talk about it, although there may be someone out there with business judgment much better than I possess to see how a viable enterprise can be created in the future. In any case, I suspect the decision against SOI was a matter of cost, and I even vaguely remember some statements to that effect. I said actually that I had cited stock prices as the one available indicator, when margin (also publicly available) indicates that Intel manages to have lower manufacturing costs. It all comes down to Intel being a *business* and not a classroom project, a dorm room bull session, or a soccer football team. Your post seems to confirm what I think is your ongoing delusion about Intel: that it is simply a better marketing machine than AMD. That it *is* a better marketing machine is probably correct. That that's all there is to Intel is nothing short of corporate defamation, if that's what you indeed intend to imply. Intel's real advantage, widely acknowledged in the industry, is that it knows how to manufacture high- end microprocessors at the lowest possible cost. SOI is one of many dead and rotting horses on csiphc. Let it be. What's interesting about it is historical: it played a key role in the triumph of x86. Isn't that enough? Robert.
From: Del Cecchi` on 22 Dec 2008 00:15 Robert Myers wrote: > On Dec 21, 1:12 am, Yousuf Khan <bbb...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > >>I did not start this thread to discuss Intel's legal issues or business >>practices, it was supposed to be about Intel's manufacturing technology, >>but as usual it's gone off-kilter. So anyways, let me get my two cents >>in about the original technological argument before we send it back to >>legal and business issues. >> >>As you'll recall, Intel announced its 45nm process with HKMG (High-K, >>Metal Gates) to great fanfare. Various websites and forums proclaimed it >>an amazing achievement. Well, the standard AMD 45nm SOI without HKMG >>process seems to be superior to Intel's, as they are seeing lower power >>and thermal requirements at the low-end, and higher overclockability at >>the high-end. AMD will be adding HKMG later on in the 45nm process too, >>but so far it looks unnecessary. >> As I understood the arguments over HKMG a year or so ago, it was more a yield thing than a performance thing, although it was said to reduce gate leakage due to tunneling. > > Intel has done many things over the years (keeping the controller off > the die, killing Alpha, sticking with a front-side bus, NetBurst, > hyperthreading, not using SOI) that have occasioned critical comment. > There is always information missing from those discussions, which is > that Intel almost always has good business reasons for doing what it > does. Its judgment may be faulty, but the key is that *you do not > have access to those reasons*. "It seemed like a good idea at the time" in some cases clearly turned out not to be so good. Examples range from IBM's FS to their billion dollars worth of X-ray machine in East Fishkill. Likewise the business reasons Intel had may or may not have been "good" in the eye of a dispassionate observer. > > The one piece of information that is available (stock price) indicates > that, whatever missteps Intel may have made, it's business judgment > (as judged by markets) has proven to be superior to AMD's. The > situation with AMD has become so dire that it almost seems pointless > to talk about it, although there may be someone out there with > business judgment much better than I possess to see how a viable > enterprise can be created in the future. AMD has been a minor portion of the market and therefore at a cost disadvantage for years. Couple that with scratching to survive and it can lead to misteps. Monopoly level market share makes up for a lot of sins. > > In any case, I suspect the decision against SOI was a matter of cost, > and I even vaguely remember some statements to that effect. I said > actually that I had cited stock prices as the one available indicator, > when margin (also publicly available) indicates that Intel manages to > have lower manufacturing costs. It all comes down to Intel being a > *business* and not a classroom project, a dorm room bull session, or a > soccer football team. Intel manages to have lower manufacturing costs than AMD primarily because it has much greater volume. Look up "learning curve". > > Your post seems to confirm what I think is your ongoing delusion about > Intel: that it is simply a better marketing machine than AMD. That it > *is* a better marketing machine is probably correct. That that's all > there is to Intel is nothing short of corporate defamation, if that's > what you indeed intend to imply. Intel's real advantage, widely > acknowledged in the industry, is that it knows how to manufacture high- > end microprocessors at the lowest possible cost. > > SOI is one of many dead and rotting horses on csiphc. Let it be. > What's interesting about it is historical: it played a key role in the > triumph of x86. Isn't that enough? > > Robert. Many processors are made with SOI, including all of IBM's, and the three game console processors. So I don't know why you think it is a dead and rotting horse. It has some advantages, after all. I will now return all of you to your acrimonious disputes. del
From: Robert Myers on 22 Dec 2008 14:07
On Dec 22, 12:15 am, Del Cecchi` <dcecchinos...(a)att.net> wrote: > Robert Myers wrote: > > > Intel has done many things over the years (keeping the controller off > > the die, killing Alpha, sticking with a front-side bus, NetBurst, > > hyperthreading, not using SOI) that have occasioned critical comment. > > There is always information missing from those discussions, which is > > that Intel almost always has good business reasons for doing what it > > does. Its judgment may be faulty, but the key is that *you do not > > have access to those reasons*. > > "It seemed like a good idea at the time" in some cases clearly turned > out not to be so good. Examples range from IBM's FS to their billion > dollars worth of X-ray machine in East Fishkill. > > Likewise the business reasons Intel had may or may not have been "good" > in the eye of a dispassionate observer. > Dispassionate observers of SOI for x86 (or of Intel) don't work for IBM. I don't work for either, have never worked for either, and I don't own stock in either, either directly or indirectly. I'd *love* to know how Intel made some of its decisions. The only one that's process-related is how Intel managed to be caught so flat- footed at 90nm. Even there, the real question is why they didn't abandon NetBurst sooner than they did. What kinds of lies were they telling themselves? What did they know and when did they know it? Those are, to me, really interesting questions to ask, but they don't lend themselves to the soccer stadium hooliganism that has so often passed for discussion, and only rarely do we get to hear anyone who actually knows anything speak to them. > > > > The one piece of information that is available (stock price) indicates > > that, whatever missteps Intel may have made, it's business judgment > > (as judged by markets) has proven to be superior to AMD's. The > > situation with AMD has become so dire that it almost seems pointless > > to talk about it, although there may be someone out there with > > business judgment much better than I possess to see how a viable > > enterprise can be created in the future. > > AMD has been a minor portion of the market and therefore at a cost > disadvantage for years. Couple that with scratching to survive and it > can lead to misteps. Monopoly level market share makes up for a lot of > sins. > You could just as well say that Intel has suffered for its size, and it has, as I think IBM has, in the past, paid for its size. Intel is famous for being able to replicate manufacturing on a large scale. On the face of it, though, experience with Prescott suggests that Intel is maybe not so good at managing huge design resources--but that's only a guess. Big organizations can have big economies of scale. They can also have bloated and dysfunctional org charts. > > > > In any case, I suspect the decision against SOI was a matter of cost, > > and I even vaguely remember some statements to that effect. I said > > actually that I had cited stock prices as the one available indicator, > > when margin (also publicly available) indicates that Intel manages to > > have lower manufacturing costs. It all comes down to Intel being a > > *business* and not a classroom project, a dorm room bull session, or a > > soccer football team. > > Intel manages to have lower manufacturing costs than AMD primarily > because it has much greater volume. Look up "learning curve". > I'm not in the business, so I couldn't comment on how easy it is to scale up process manufacturing. Not trivial, though, I'll bet. > > > > Your post seems to confirm what I think is your ongoing delusion about > > Intel: that it is simply a better marketing machine than AMD. That it > > *is* a better marketing machine is probably correct. That that's all > > there is to Intel is nothing short of corporate defamation, if that's > > what you indeed intend to imply. Intel's real advantage, widely > > acknowledged in the industry, is that it knows how to manufacture high- > > end microprocessors at the lowest possible cost. > > > SOI is one of many dead and rotting horses on csiphc. Let it be. > > What's interesting about it is historical: it played a key role in the > > triumph of x86. Isn't that enough? > > > Many processors are made with SOI, including all of IBM's, and the three > game console processors. So I don't know why you think it is a dead and > rotting horse. It has some advantages, after all. > One can never be too careful when writing a post. I naively assumed the implied context of the groups: ibm pc's and intel systems. From those points of view, it's all old news, unless, of course, you're scratching around for positive things to say about AMD's lagging technology or trying to revive an old argument. Robert. |