What Products Use Intel 10nm? SuperFin and 10++ Demystified
by Dr. Ian Cutress on September 25, 2020 9:00 AM ESTThe AnandTech Decoder Ring for Intel 10nm
The reason why I’m writing about this topic is because it is all a bit of a mess. Intel is a company so large, with many different business units each with its own engineers and internal marketing personnel/product managers, that a single change made by the HQ team takes time to filter down to the other PR teams, but also filter back through the engineers, some of which make press-facing appearances. That’s before any discussions as to whether the change is seen as positive or negative by those affected.
I reached out to Intel to get their official decoder ring for the 10++ to new SuperFin naming. The official response I received was in itself confusing, and the marketing person I speak to wasn’t decoding from the first 2018 naming change, but from the original pre-2017 naming scheme. Between my contacts and I we spoke over the phone so I could hear what they wanted to tell me and so I could tell them what I felt were the reasons for the changes. Some of the explanations I made (such as Intel not wanting to acknowledge Ice Lake 10nm is different to Cannon Lake 10nm, or that Ice Lake 10nm is called that way to hide the fact that Cannon Lake 10nm didn’t work) were understandably left with a no comment.
However, I now have an official decoder ring for you, to act as a reference for both users and Intel’s own engineers alike.
| AnandTech's Decoder Ring for Intel's 10nm | ||||
| Product | 2020+ | First Update |
Original |
|
| Cannon Lake | - | - | 10nm | |
| Ice Lake Ice Lake-SP Lakefield (compute) Snow Ridge Elkhart Lake |
10nm | 10nm | 10+ | |
| Tiger Lake SG1 DG1 |
10nm Superfin |
10+ | 10++ | |
| Alder Lake First Xe-HP GPU Sapphire Rapids |
10nm Enhanced SuperFin |
10++ | 10+++ | |
For clarity, 10nm Superfin is often abbreviated to 10SF, and 10nm Enhanced Superfin to 10ESF.
Moving forward, Intel’s communications team is committed to explaining everything in terms of 10nm, 10SF, and 10ESF. I have been told that the process of moving all internal documents away from the pre-2017 naming to the 2020 naming is already underway.
We reached out for Intel for a comment for this article:
It is widely acknowledged within the industry that there is inconsistency and confusion in [our] nanometer nomenclature. Going forward, we will refer the next generation 10nm products as 10nm SuperFin technology-based products.
My take is that whoever had the bright idea to knock Ice Lake down from 10+ to 10 (and then Tiger from 10++ to 10+ etc.), in order to protect the company from addressing issues with the Cannon Lake product, drastically failed at predicting the fallout that this name change would bring. Sometimes a company should accept they didn't score as well as they did, admit the hit, and move on, rather than try and cover it up. So much more time and effort has been lost in terms of communications between the press and Intel, or the press and engineers, or even between the engineers and Intel's own communications team. Even the basic understanding of dealing with that change has been difficult, to the detriment of the press trying to report on Intel’s technology, and likely even on the financial side as investors try to understand what’s going on.
But, truth be told, I’m glad that Intel moved away from the ++++ nomenclature. It allows the company to now easily name future manufacturing node technologies that aren’t just for pure logic performance, which may be vital if Intel ever wants to become a foundry player again.
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Luminar - Saturday, September 26, 2020 - link
The wildfires were a result of AMD sabotage. Someone tried benchmarking his FX-8350 and R9 290x build.Spunjji - Monday, September 28, 2020 - link
😂eastcoast_pete - Saturday, September 26, 2020 - link
I hope Ryan is okay (health- and otherwise)! I actually got a bit concerned - this launch is a classic "Ryan does a deep dive review" moment. Or, did you guys at AT get on Jensen's sh#"list so they wouldn't send you review samples? But if, I can't see why that would be!Spunjji - Monday, September 28, 2020 - link
Yeah, I too am sad that we haven't received his insight on Ampere, as a lot of the content put out by other sites has left me wanting (and don't get me started on the YouTube soft-serve junk).On the flip side, I'm even more upset about how much of CA is on fire. 😫
watersb - Saturday, September 26, 2020 - link
Focus on the process node as a nominal feature size is over. Why can't we just let it go?This Tiger Lake bit, with SuperFin, would not be the same without that new capacitor design for the metal layer. A stack of materials, each layer on the order of three Ångstroms, that's nuts.
As long as we are fetishizing the light source wavelength or whatever, let's talk about the level of complexity that must be addressed.
So maybe Intel will not discuss design rules or validation protocols; that's intellectual property that they rely upon every bit as much as the frickin' ASML laser beams. Okay, you can't get them to comment, or provide slides, so not much to write about.
But we might at least entertain the notion that a godlike, perfect nano bot might well assemble some device at a 14nm scale that far exceeds what is considered possible in 2020.
davide445 - Saturday, September 26, 2020 - link
So much appreciating the inquisitive and specialistic work you are doing in Anandtech. The safe heaven I can always look at for objective unbiased analysis. Waiting for your Ampere GPU review.dontlistentome - Saturday, September 26, 2020 - link
Windows NT when it launched could support x86, DEC Alpha, MIPS and other CPU architectures transparently.If only they'd stuck with that - we'd have ARM laptops and desktops as a matter of course now, and Intel/AMD would have been a whole step forward than where they are with proper competition between competing instruction sets.
Alaa - Saturday, September 26, 2020 - link
Bloody hell!TheJian - Saturday, September 26, 2020 - link
"Intel ever wants to become a foundry player again."Funny, I thought they were basically running all fabs full steam (thus a player for a massively large portion of the market). Granted for a bit they will be using others (always have for some stuff) for some main launches now, but it is only until they right the fab ship and they have many ways to do that.
Acting like Intel is out of the game making 23.6B NET INCOME TTM is almost as bad as Ryan calling 1440p the enthusiast standard at 660ti launch...ROFLMAO. Go see the comments on that article to see how stupid his/j. Walton arguments were. Walton eventually resorted to name calling/personal attacks etc. I buried you guys with your OWN data...ROFL.
Oh, well, Intel's not a portal site here so...Yeah, I own the stock and wouldn't touch AMD with a 10ft pole if YOU were holding it. I said the slide was coming, we're 94 down to 77 now? A few more ~100mil Q's and people will take it back down to 30, and if they can't prove then a Billion/Q NET INCOME then they'll go way under that at some point.
That said, RAISE YOUR PRICES amd, so you can finally break 1B NET INCOME for a few quarters while owning some of the best cpus for years. If you don't break a billion in the next Q or two, you need to be bought, or CEO fired. NV just took back 9% share. Intel just had a record Q. You are doing nothing but hurting YOUR net income by not raising prices on very good product. Quit trying for cheap share, and start chasing RICH like NV/Intel. People buying parts under $250 on either side don't make you rich. Just stop consoles altogether and you'll have more R&D for stuff that makes more than 10-15% margins (consoles are made for $95-105 last gen, AMD made single digits for much of it, then mid teens, meaning 15% or less, or you'd say 16%). Consoles are why your cpu dropped out of the race for round1 (had to design 2 of those instead of cpus 7yrs ago or so) and gpu sucked all through the refresh etc. Timing is rough here, but you get the point.
They made a stupid bet on consoles dictating PC life, and well, NV said nope, and we listened to NV mostly :) You won't win with price if the other guy is kicking you perf wise. Richer people pay for perf, while the poor want that discount. That is the difference between an AMD Q report vs. Intel/NVDA. NV looks at possible margin and says, "consoles? ROFL. Whatever dude, I like making more on workstation/server and flagship desktops." Intel said the same and shafted celeron/pentium etc (poor people chips left 10% empty handed for ages) while moving wafers to high margin stuff (thus even losing on some sales, but still gaining revenue/income). Dump the cheap stuff when silicon is short (everywhere) and your enemy has good product. IE, fight only in stuff that makes highest margin(forget 8-15% crap like consoles - AMD said single digits early on, NOT ME).
AMDSuperFan - Saturday, September 26, 2020 - link
I think what you are missing is we enjoy playing AMD on our consoles very much. Who cares how much money a company makes. The market has spoken and said if AMD makes a billion a year, it is still as valuable as Intel or Nvidia. It is possible that in 20 or 30 years AMD might make that $23B that year and then you will feel very silly for saying the stock is not worth $30. I like AMD because of the 486DX4-120. It was faster than the DX3-100. I have been a fan ever since. Also, I liked ATI cards very much. Nvidia liked Voodoo2 cards and bought them for pennies on the dollar. AMD cards might be noisier and slower but they still are good for all the last generation games before Nvidia came out with their cheat of ray tracing technology. I still have a 7800 adapter which is quite fast for a lot of games. Even Diablo #2 is quite nice on it.So while you are talking money, I think John Carmack would approve of the AMD cards and processors of today. When AMD put 100 or 200 cores on a chip then people will know how serious they can be. Why would you want 8, 10, or even 16 ultra fast cores for computing, when you could have 200 cores to do more.
Also, I think it is good that AMD are putting people in Taiwan to work instead of always focusing their labor on Americans and Texans like they used to.