I take every CEO's words with a bag of salt, and i learnt not to trust them completely (or at all) throughout the years. That's why it's safe to assume that there's not proof of 7nm ready either, just words, nothing else …
Sure enough I do too, wouldn't contest that (or your legit viewpoint) anyway, not even to the slightest.
… and the reason because nobody says anything about that is because AMD is seen as the good guy, and the others are seen as the bad guys, that's plain simple.
I'm sorry, but that's just nonsense. Please, don't fall victim to that
black-and-white-scheme and usual thinking in stereotypes already!
There's no proof 7nm is ready and working besides their CEO's words, and i'm pretty sure that even if it is ready, they might be launching products on 7nm only a few months before intel will be able to launch their on 10nm.
I would heavily contest that! Not because it's AMD being outclassing Intel here but since it's extremely unlikely to happen that way. Intel by themselves said, they won't be able to launch anything prior to 4Q19. And given that they already said they will be shipping products on 10nm already in second half of '17 (they said that already
past the point at which they predicted it to be the case …), it's even highly unlikely that they'll be able to ship anything in volume prior to 1Q20. They already said they were completely on track with 10nm the last time in second half of '17 – just to backpedal later on and say something happened on the way to heaven which forced them to postpone it. Again, as usual. Same procedure as
every year. … since '15.
Just to be clear here, Intel have had to bring something on 10nm just for the shareholders (that infamous 2+0 Die being fused off halfly) so that those may be eventually pleased after years of rescheduling on 10nm – and that those finally at least see that Intel actually had a 10nm node running at all.
I think it's rather wishful thinking than actual condition that Intel will bring anything to market just a few month after TSCM being already shipping in volume. The process is broken atm and even if they'll be able to fix it (no given indication for that being actually happening anytime soon though), the last signs didn't even paint the picture their 10nm will bring any higher clocks, having higher energy-efficiency or bringing anything being superior to their latest 14nm process.
Intel has been leading the industry for the last 10 years pretty much …
Sure, they were leading for decades, yes. GloFo/Samsung/TSMC didn't weren't able to take the crown in less than 2 years. The thing is, Intel had a significant node-advantage ever since, even a quite great one, but that's past now. They're struggling not only on their 10nm node but have ever since their 22nm. Even their first 14nm products weren't able to deliver higher clock speeds than their former node and it took them years to fine-tune 14nm to archive the same yields on their 14nm they had on their 22nm.
… it's not likely that GF/Samsung/TSMC will totally revert that in less than 2 years.
You're picturing it as all this happened overnight after all … I mean „less than 2 years“?!
So,
recently?! May I kindly remind you of the initial roadmaps that seem like a silly joke today?
Since, according to those, they should've had (or rather wanted to) already deliver 10nm in 2015 ...
... and next year in '19 would have been already 5nm.
Would …
have been.
So judging by their own road-maps, they're already 3 nodes in arrears by next year. That surely isn't a time-frame I would dare consider to call „less than 2 years“ you know …
5nm in '19. They aren't even close to shipping anything from two nodes before that node as of yet. 5nm is scheduled to come after 7nm, 7nm after 10nm. Not even the latter one is in a condition to allow shipping anything fully working, apart from the fact that 10nm doesn't even deliver anything superior to their 14nm node.
I mean, let's take it for granted that 10nm is working as they (re-) scheduled it (again) the last time, shall we?
So 10nm is working. What you think they going to fab on it? Their usual
bread-and-butter-chip like a quad-core? Do you honestly think you're going to draw any customers from the woodwork with a quad-core in '19? No way! Not after AMD humiliated the market for Quad-cores in mainstream with Octa-Cores with their penny-pinching.
The least you have to bring is a Octa-Core (which Intel already at leat understood, and act accordingly with the 9700K & 9900K). Do you think they're going to be able to fab a Die this big on 10nm by now? No way. If it isn't impossible, we'll see and witness a incredibly epic mircale in the electronic semiconductor industry for the first time. It's nigh impossible to increase the yield-rate this fast (to make a chip this big to happen), even with a completely working and perfect process. No-one is able to archive a stunt like that. It would not only be magic but a pure act of doing wondrous deeds, performing a miracle. Not going to happen.
As bad as it seems, we have to acknowledge the fact that AMD hit Intel with the most incredible potential at Intel's single worst time in both of their respective history. They have them by the balls – and to even shift that case of power-balance any back, let alone to correct it to the former state, will take years. As said, even if 10nm will be working perfectly today, they're still left with a architecture which is pretty much dead (not only on the security part …). Even if 10nm is working perfectly today, it will only by them a few month at best, until AMD can punch back even harder (as they do already by now).
The silly thing is, most of the epic failures Intel did, was not even to sit idling and waiting but to allow AMD to reach a position they have now. The moment AMD hired Jim Keller, alarms should've going off and even the fact that they were working on a 'complete new architecture' should've raised every fucking single red flag possible. They did exactly nothing instead.
It's like Intel watched their murder to sharpen the very knife AMD was going to slit their throat with (and even announced to do so) – and they (Intel) were somewhat stunned and fascinated by doing so. They wasn't even interested about any ongoing but just did not care,
at all. They just gave a fuck about it. Cause of … I really don't know.
It actually really seems that Intel was just profoundly convinced that AMD – after their own
official capitulation in '11 – would strike sail and that they henceforth, awed before Big Blue™, would content theirselves with just getting the fallen breadcrumbs. In the meantime Intel was supposed (and most probably saw themselves in doing so) in self-aggrandisement indulging to stoop downwards every third quarter to release their newest iteration of their oh so holy IPC-incarnation (which was nothing less than directly casted out of finest gold bullion – and hence pricy as fuck) into the market for the populace – which for sure included the obligatory supererogation within the range of measuring-tolerance, but for sure make prices spiral up for that anyway.
Though, that worked pretty well for Intel for almost a decade, didn't it?. And Intel most certainly would've had driven that game forever and for always even up to Tigerlake, wherewith Intel – on the condition that AMD never would've get up ever again – even would've had gone through with …
To be honest, what shocks me the most is the fact, how incredibly blind (and with that stupid or at least shortsighted) Intel must have been in actually thinking or at least fall victim to the green belief, that this would a) last for some time and most importantly, b) that AMD wouldn't come back (or at least try to do so). There were a greater number of companies in the past you better never ever write off (no matter in what condition or incredibly miserable their position was at that point). AMD always was that kind of company you better watch out for.
I mean, wasn't that this very company who managed to reverse-engineer Intels 386/486 and come out with a copy of it which even performed ways superior to their own (Intel's original)? It honestly drives me nuts how Intel could be so naive in thinking AMD wouldn't try something to come back. Those are these companies you better have a
pret·ty damn sharp stare at if they 'surrender', lock theirselves into their basement and hunker down at home (and keep staying scaring silent while doing so).
Sure, it's just my opinion but the biggest fault Intel let happen is allowing AMD to reach the position they managed to have now. Intel should've been at full alert twenty-four hours a day the moment after the news that AMD hired Jim Keller was coming through the ticker – especially after the past and what Jim „The Godfather of Chip-design and the embodied IC“ Keller already did at and with AMD already back then in the times with the Athlon.
