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Maybe Intel's reduced capex is Intel keeping their powder dry for the transition to 450mm.
Why spend $$ now on 300mm capacity that will be 20-30% less cost-effective when that transition happens?
Just a thought...
Mr. Jean-Louis Gassée needs to do a little more homework as his article is riddled with inaccuracies. But that's what you get when someone with an axe to grind goes looking for data to support his thesis instead of looking at the data before making up your mind.
JMHO,
-VBG
The article says "Intel Corp. (INTC), the world’s largest maker of computer chips, gained the approval of the Israeli government for its plan to invest $6 billion in its factory in the south of the country"
Not "to build chip plant"
Translation: invest in existing F28 to upgrade from 20nm tech to XXnm tech. Nothing surprising here. These announcements happen regularly for both US and non-US fabs.
-VBG
Of course it's not logical, but neither is triskaidekaphobia and how many high-rises in the US don't have a 13th floor?
Intel had a Fab11, Fab12, Fab14, Fab15, Fab16 (Austin, TX - never built), Fab17, and Fab18, but no Fab13.
The Dailin fab broke from tradition and is called Fab68 because 6 and 8 are both considered propitious in China.
-VBG
Why does MacBeth Act V Scene V come to mind?
-VBG
Who is this Steve Cook guy anyway and what does he have to do with Intel?
Is he related to Tim Jobs?
-VBG
Good catch! Except ironically it's not Tangier.
Compare the core with a die shot of Valleyview or Avoton.
Definitely not Silvermont.
There don't seem to be many die shots in the wild of many Saltwell derivatives, other than 1 or 2 grainy shots of Penwell --> ChuckieD
But it looks like Saltwell to me.
Since it is dual core, it is probably Cloverview+, though it could be Briarwood.
-VBG
Isn't the Dell Venue 8 a Android tablet and shipping now?
Not sure where you are getting your dates, but Q4'13 is just wrong.
-VBG
Nice find!
Thanks! -VBG
Intel is just putting up a building for tools. They will work with TSMC and Samsung to transition the industry to 450mm.
BTW, the edge loss is trivial @ 300mm for all but the biggest die. ~1-1.5% for mainstream processors. It is only significant for really big die, 5-7% Those are already low volume and high margin.
Of course this is a simplification since die yield is a function of radial distance, so that actual benefit may be somewhat higher, but still dwarfed by the economics of getting ~125% more area for ~70% more cost.
-VBG
Andrew Feldman, GM and corporate VP at AMD, explained this idea in a series of conversations with me over the last few weeks in which he estimated that one could build an entirely custom chip using the ARM architecture in about 18 months for about $30 million.
This doesn't ring true to me. I thought one mask set at 20nm would cost more than $30 million.
BWDIK?
-VBG
Sorry, can't discuss further.
Continue to believe what you believe.
I don't care either way.
That's all very nice, but Andy is talking about CloverTrail Plus.
Clovertrail+ is at least 2X bigger than the low to mid range competition
So you continue to assert. Please submit some sort of evidence, or drop it...
Your SNR is much higher than in the past, but this is particular argument is tiresome.
-VBG
LOL! Denverton, Project Denver.
Coincidence?
Intel usually takes the high road, so this code-name co-opting is surprising. I sort of consider NVidia an also-ran in the microserver space. Serious HPC chops, but microserver? Do they even have a fabric story?
-VBG
.....still waiting for a die size on Clover Trail+ .......it seems INTEL will not release it.......why do you think that is?
You are the only person who cares?
what is the estimate you used to determine Intel's cost to produce such a chip? My guess is 108mm^2 No one seems to want to put a number on it. What was changed from Clovertrail to Clovertrail+?
Do some homework.
I thought it was a much improved and larger GPU. Am I wrong?
Yes
Was there more?
No, there was less.
-VBG
so is 115mm^2 a reasonable estimate?.....if not...why.....if not what is?
No.....
CloverTrail+ is just a name. You are reading too much into the plus......
Something less.
-VBG
I think this is a reasonable explanation.
BSN is a fanboi site spun off by some of ChuckieD's proteges IIRC.
They are not a news site and should just drop the N from their name...
-VBG
Does the memory business make sense NO!
This is just more bunk from Russ, all based on the thesis that Intel is running at 50% capacity. The only thing new here is a lot of baseless speculation on TSV.
-VBG
It has not been launched, but the Mac Pro is not currently available for sale either.
No it does not.
They have nothing to do with each other.
eDRAM is being made now and not in AZ.
450mm is still multiple years away.
Russ F's speculation is just that, speculation.
Did you read any of the article?
While Intel’s eDRAM will have a big impact on the industry, it is not a direct threat to the high volume vendors like Samsung or Micron. The DRAM business is mostly a low margin, commodity business where cost metrics drive decisions; there are a few exceptions such as specialized solutions for high value applications such as networking or graphics. To give a rough idea, spot prices for a 128MB DRAM range from $1-$3. Intel has incredible margins by any standards (50-60%), and is uninterested in businesses where the gross margins are around 10-20% and silicon is essentially free. However, the custom DRAM market is a different story altogether.
-VBG
What about OpenCL ?
-VBG
Kind of misleading article.
Intel also announced the faster Xeon E5 and E7 chips, which are based on Ivy Bridge. The E5 chip is for mid-range servers and will come with up to eight cores, while the E7 chip is targeted at high-end servers and will have up to 10 CPU cores.
It talks about the new Ivy Bridge based server chips, then gives the specs for the existing Jaketown (Sandy Bridge) and Eagleton (Westmere) based chips.
Same thing with the cache.
The Xeon E7 chip includes 30MB of L3 cache and draws up to 130 watts of power.
This is for the existing E7 line launched 2yrs ago and the 30MB of cache is not L3, but includes L2 cache as well.
Irritating, but unfortunately par for the course in tech journalism. ChuckieD may be an ranting bloviator, but you've got to give the guy credit for usually having his basic facts straight.
-VBG
Why not invite him over here?
Why not?
To paraphrase Clarence A. Waldo,
"I'm already acquainted with as many crazy people as I care to know."
Indiana Pi Bill
-VBG
Edit: I see an invite has been extended. Time to get out the ol' clue bat...
Call me unsavory, but I think he's nuts and getting nuttier.
I mean seriously, Intel is going to use this hypothetical (and non-existent) 14nm 450mm capacity to produce NAND for ~$17K/wafer instead of making Broadwell at something on the order of 10x the revenue?
If you believe that, I have $25M I'd like to wire to your bank account from Nigeria. For providing me with a temporary holding place for these funds, you get 10%, just send me your account number and password.
-VBG
key word - "unique"
-VBG
C4 bumps
http://www.ami.ac.uk/courses/topics/0260_fc/index.html
in 2000 bump diameters were > 100um with a pitch ~150um.
Even with this size, you could fit over 1000 bumps on a 26mm2 die.
-VBG
A very reasonable estimate.
I wish I could find an Intel SOC with CAN ports
maybe overkill, but can CAN be implemented in an FPGA?
Tunnel Creek
swan dive into an empty pool
No! No! No!
This is good news!
AMD is that much closer to Rory's long-term goal of having semi-custom embedded increase to 40% of revenues.
This can be done either by increasing embedded revenues, or by bleeding market share in their traditional segments, or both.
The restructuring of AMD is working as planned.
-VBG
from his site
Rob a.k.a. Techinsidr has been trading stocks and following the stock market since 1997. He formerly worked at Intel Corporation in a Financial Analyst role, responsible for overseeing an annual budget of $160 million.
I guess he could have worked at AMD as well...
-VBG
http://beta.fool.com/techinsidr/2013/01/26/intels-hangover-continues-2013-buy-or-sell/22450/
Not interesting, logical or thought provoking either.
Sounds like sour grapes from an ex-Intel employee.
"Robert E. Irr III is a Financial Analyst who previously worked at a major technology company in the semiconductor industry."
-VBG
Interesting,logical and thought provoking speculations
No, no, no and yes.
A bunch of facts, sprinkled with a few non-facts, about the various mobile players, followed by the ridiculous thesis the winner in mobile will be the one who can provide a common platform across phones, tablets and PCs and QED, Intel wins.
Of course it's not nearly as idiotic as his last article where he claims Intel has enough capacity in place right now to generate $90B in revenue.
-VBG
cause it's not a new fab
-VBG
How do they get away with $4B for a fab? Especially for a 14nm one?
The image includes the caption "High Voltage (TG)"
which to me at least explained the red layer. YMMV.
-VBG
be careful where you tread...
ummm, Chipguy doesn't work for Intel and has stated so multiple times.
I merely linked to an EE-Times article where the image clearly explains the red layer - http://eetimes.com/ContentEETimes/Images/Itrans.jpg
-VBG
No systems, no OS, no silicon? WTFAYS?
10/27/11 - http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4230166/AMCC-demos-64-bit-ARM-server-chip
"Silicon will sample in the second half of 2012."
11/1/12 - http://investor.appliedmicro.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=78121&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1753128&highlight=
"AppliedMicro Circuits Corporation will today for the first time demonstrate several open source software applications running on its X-Gene™ Server on a Chip™ platform"
"The session will include presentations from operating system developer, Red Hat; virtualization solution provider, Citrix; enterprise Hadoop software and solutions provider, Cloudera; Java platform provider, Oracle; and an enterprise cloud computing technologist from Morgan Stanley."
Sounds like silicon, OS and system and a software stack to me.
You want to take bets on whether Google or Facebook already have their hands on some?
-VBG