Intel's Process Roadmap to 2025: with 4nm, 3nm, 20A and 18A?!
by Dr. Ian Cutress on July 26, 2021 5:00 PM ESTCustomers Customers Customers
As a roadmap announcement today, the focus isn’t so much on the customers but on the technology. Because Intel is moving into a phase where it expects its IFS offerings to compete against the established players, it has to consider its disclosures with respect to both its internal use and any external interest, which is a new concept for the company – at least on this scale compared to its previous foundry efforts.
Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, in the company’s Q3 financial call last week, was keen to point out that they already have a large hyperscaler customer signed up for their next generation packaging technology, however today there would appear to also be another customer in the mix. Now we assume that Intel’s Foundry Services is talking to 100s of chip companies, big and small, but it doesn’t take much to sign an NDA to start to talk – what will be interesting is when customers start making commitments to using Intel’s facilities, and if any of those are volume orders.
As part of the announcement today, Intel held a little bit back from us, saying that they are saving some of the details specifically for the event that is going on as we publish this piece. All we know is that our draft press release has a big yellow bar that says ‘[customer news]’ on it, right next to Intel’s 20A process node details.
For reference, Intel 20A is a 2024 technology using first generation Gate-All-Around transistors, marketed as RibbonFETs, as well as backside power delivery, marketed as PowerVias. At this time Intel expects to have second/third-generation EMIB available as well as fourth-generation Foveros Direct. So if a customer is already committing to Intel 20A, there’s going to be a lot of potential here.
When the announcement is made, we will update this news article.
To conclude, Intel maintains that these roadmaps will showcase a clear path to process performance leadership* by 2025. It’s a tall order, and the company has to execute better than it has in recent memory - but that’s kind of why the company has rehired a number of former Intel experts and fellows in research, product design, and execution.
*as measured by performance per watt at iso-power
Here's a secondary comparison chart (compared to the one on page one) with all three main foundry offerings listed in each of the main segments that Intel has discussed today.
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GeoffreyA - Wednesday, August 4, 2021 - link
Android and iOS have grown towards each other over time. Today, it looks like iOS in many ways and is a lot more polished. Things have certainly changed. Going from Lollipop to Pie in 2019 was quite a departure for me but I got used to it after a few days. My Android experience (always Samsung) has been pleasant all the way, and I don't think I'll ever go onto Apple, though I hand to Tim, Craig, and the gang for their polish and their conservative addition approach vs. Android's curtailing the open doors.GeoffreyA - Wednesday, August 4, 2021 - link
I think for many people, the mobile brand and OS square with who they are, so to speak. For my part, I'd feel pretty odd using an iPhone, despite the excellent hardware. Quite likely, it's just the whole Apple atmoshere that I've got an aversion to. They'll have to send me to Room 101 if they want to convert me.mode_13h - Thursday, August 5, 2021 - link
> I'd feel pretty odd using an iPhoneApple lost me at walled garden.
I really wanted Mozilla to succeed with their Firefox OS phone project. I wish they'd stuck with it a bit longer. If they'd gotten it on another generation of phones, I was going to buy one.
I know a dyed-in-the-wool Windows user & developer who tried to stick with their phone platform, but even he got burned too many times and eventually jumped ship. If they ever had any hope of competing with Android, they couldn't afford so many strategic blunders. Also, they really just needed to copy the open source model, or at least not try to make a profit on the OS.
GeoffreyA - Thursday, August 5, 2021 - link
Let's hope they keep developing Gecko and Quantum and don't go over to Blink. I will sigh the day that happens, being a Firefox user.mode_13h - Friday, August 6, 2021 - link
> Let's hope they keep developing Gecko and Quantum and don't go over to Blink.I don't follow their developments that closely, but I know I had to disable Proton when it got switched on. It was too resource intensive and bogged down the browsing experience considerably.
GeoffreyA - Friday, August 6, 2021 - link
Me too! I disabled Proton on the first/second day. Those floating tabs were terrible.GeoffreyA - Sunday, August 15, 2021 - link
Unfortunately, 91 has made it harder to disable Proton. Wonderful.Oxford Guy - Wednesday, August 11, 2021 - link
‘I really wanted Google to succeed with their Firefox OS phone project.’Fixed it for you. Guess who runs Mozilla?
Just take a look at how many entries Google gets in about:config
mode_13h - Thursday, August 12, 2021 - link
> Fixed it for you. Guess who runs Mozilla?No, why do you say that? And why would Google get Mozilla to make a phone OS that's a competitor to Android?
> Just take a look at how many entries Google gets in about:config
That's proof of what, exactly? With one exception, they're 'browser.safebrowsing.provider.google'. If you have better providers, I'll bet Mozilla would like to hear about it.
Wow, you're like one of these conspiracy theory nuts that finds a spelling error in some random document and uses it as if it's iron clad proof of some vast, sweeping scheme.
Before Google had their Chrome browser, they were indeed a big backer of Mozilla. However, those days are long gone. Mozilla had big layoffs about a year ago, unfortunately.
Oxford Guy - Tuesday, August 3, 2021 - link
‘You're still making a pretty solid argument in favour of most Apple owners not buying due to specs.’I have met a good number of intelligent people who quit buying MtG cards long ago. Sometimes people need to learn the hard way to not feed a bad deal.
Then, there are wealthy lazy people, who I have also seen, who will fork over the blood money to Apple. In their defense, many of them are quite old and don’t want to learn new tricks — even though UI is changing anyway, mainly due to the penchant of corporations for having only contempt for the productivity and happiness of customers.