Hacker News Reader

Comment by InTheArena | Hacker News Reader

Given Intel's struggles around their process shrink, AMD may have come up with the perfect product at the perfect time. You can already see their effect with Intel finally adding more cores to their chips to try and stay competitive.

I do think that Intel will manage to get silicon out a bit earlier then their current end of CY19, but if they don't, TR and Ryzen may be the default go-to for manufacturers.

View on HN

> Given Intel's struggles around their process shrink, AMD may have come up with the perfect product at the perfect time.

Yes -- AMD got lucky, this time. I sincerely doubt they (or anyone else) had any idea how Intel will struggle with their 10nm when they started on Zen in 2012. Back in 2013 Intel said they will have Cannon Lake out in 2015 (!) https://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/16/intel_10nm_14nm_pla... and today, mid 2018, the only released Cannon Lake CPU is a sad little dual core with the graphics chip disabled ( i3-8121U) selling in "very limited quantities".

65nm: 2006

45nm: 2007

32nm: 2010

22nm: 2012

14nm: 2014

10nm: 2019 (?)

It is time to give AMD a chance. Intel is plagued by problems with the 10nm process technology resulting in no significant innovation on their CPUs' performance or power consumption for over two years now. And just recently they pushed their 10nm products even further back to the second half of 2019. AMD might have the first 7nm CPUs out by then. Of course process technologies are not easily comparable between fabs but it is still crazy to see Intel starting to fall behind in process technology - a game they dominated for decades.

> It is time to give AMD a chance. Intel is plagued by problems with the 10nm process technology resulting in no significant innovation on their CPUs' performance or power consumption for over two years now.

The difference between 14nm and 14nm+++ is pretty close to a full node step...

> And just recently they pushed their 10nm products even further back to the second half of 2019. AMD might have the first 7nm CPUs out by then. Of course process technologies are not easily comparable between fabs but it is still crazy to see Intel starting to fall behind in process technology - a game they dominated for decades.

The numbers used for process 'sizes' don't really hold any meaning anymore and can't be directly compared. Intel's 14nm is 'better' in almost every metric than other fabs 10nm process. Intel's 10nm process is expected to be similarly comparable to other fabs 7nm.

Intel isn't really behind on process tech, but the competition has closed the gap considerably.

If they arent behind on process tech, then they arent using it properly. The numbers are there. All techs aside, AMD is building competative chips at lower pricepoints. Intel has to pull the rabbit from the hat if it wants to stay in the spotlight.

Yes but only because Intel hit the wall first.

The still have tons of money and spend more time breaking that wall.

Good for us anyway. Don't mind getting my Intel CPUs cheaper.

> Yes but only because Intel hit the wall first.

I fail to see how that's relevant. What matters is what products are available in the market and how much they cost, and AMD's offering is both cheaper and more performant than anything Intel managed to put together.

> Intel's 10nm process is expected to be similarly comparable to other fabs 7nm

No, Intel's 10nm is worse than TSMC's 7nm in every metric. Not significantly so, but it is so.

It also seems to be viable whereas Intel's hasn't been proven yet (the only released product is a mobile chip with the iGPU disabled due to defects and low yields).

There's also Samsung hurting intel image a lot. They became the most profitable silicon~ company (due to loads of memory) and they are head to head with intel in transistor process (near EUV ready).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com