Intel Corp (INTC)

[Saturn V]

Stupidity of stock analysts ! A little knowledge is a dangerous thing !

http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2015/05/19/xilinx-altera-dark-silicon-makes-their-wares-essential-says-pac-crest/?mod=yahoobarrons&ru=yahoo

The analyst is taking the "Power Wall" scare story and conjuring up the story of Dark Silicon. The Power Wall will affect all semiconductor makers equally. Just because an FPGA has been used to implement custom acceleration of some server workloads, does not render FPGAs to be immune to the problem.

If the Power wall does come about, it will require device/process innovation, and also innovation in the chip architecture and circuit design to further advance technology. FPGA can help faster exploration of new architectural tricks, but that does not buy immunity from physical limits.

A few years ago the mantra that "Intel x86 will never go into battery powered tablets and phones due to the basic laws of physics" was rampant. The understanding of the laws of physics amongst several industry pundits is pretty abysmal.