Intel CC: Ivy Bridge began volume 22nm production in Q3

[tatertot]

Also, Romley SB-EP has been shipping since Q3.

From Intel's earnings CC last night:

http://seekingalpha.com/article/300...results-earnings-call-transcript?source=yahoo

"During the third quarter, the Data Center business also set an all-time record for storage units. We also announced that our Sandy Bridge-based 2 socket server product, code-named Romley, is shipping for revenue. Demand for Romley is forecasted to be 20x that of Nehalem at the same point of its life cycle, and we expect to launch early next year with almost 2x the design wins Nehalem had at its launch. "

--

"During the third quarter, we began volume production up Ivy Bridge on our 22 nanometer process technology."

"The fourth quarter gross margin forecast assumes a late quarter qualification for sale of Ivy Bridge, our first product on 22 nanometer."

--

http://seekingalpha.com/article/300...1-results-earnings-call-transcript?part=qanda

"David M. Wong - Wells Fargo Securities, LLC, Research Division

My final thing, when might we expect the first PCs with Ivy Bridge chips to be on shelves?

Paul S. Otellini

Spring."

--

22nm volume production underway in Q3 2011... impressive.

Oh, and one last thing from their call:

"To your question on share gain with AMD, we'll wait and see their results. Our sense is we may have picked up a little bit of revenue share at the end of the quarter. But just to quantify that, I think it was probably on the order of $50 million to $100 million of impact to our business. "

 

[greenhawk]

22nm volume production underway in Q3 2011... impressive.

One thing I am not sure on about this is why you are impressed with intel starting to manufacture a product in advance of it's release when they expect a large demand and need world wide supplys pretty much in stores ready to place on shelves on a pre-arranged date.

Does intel normally only need a 1 month from starting to produce to being able to say "availble at your local computer store?

Sure it is good to see it is not some last minute anoucement, but between Q3 and Q4, I do not see why now is impressive. It is still about 6 months away and intel is not going to release two months early.

 

[sm625]

I bet intel has already manufactured more quad core 22nm chips than GF has manufactured bulldozers.

 

[tatertot]

One thing I am not sure on about this is why you are impressed with intel starting to manufacture a product in advance of it's release.

I didn't say that.

I'm impressed with Intel confirming volume production of 22nm in Q3 2011 -- (and note, expected to qualify for sales in late Q4) -- given the state of the rest of the manufacturing industry:

- GloFo floundering about with bad 32nm yields and leakage, planning on shipping SHP 28nm in 2013 and 20/22nm SHP in 2014.
- Both GloFo and TSMC reportedly having 28nm difficulties

The schedule does also tend to quash the speculation by some (*cough* SemiAccurate *cough*) that the shift of the Ivy launch from Jan to March/April was due to 22nm issues, rather than what Intel said it was: a marketing decision to help OEMs that were impacted by the SB chipset issue and wanted a full cycle for their SB products.

 

[Vesku]

I bet intel has already manufactured more quad core 22nm chips than GF has manufactured bulldozers.

Not really a bet when Intel has at least 2 Fabs running 22nm and GloFo is scrambling to convert 45nm lines to 32nm. That's the oddest thing about AMD's choice to focus on clockspeeds with BD, Intel with a lot more resources had trouble doing just that. Did AMD management know something about the future of chip fabrication or did marketing take over the design helm?

As for IB, looking good for portable computing market next year.

 

[gevorg]

The transition to 22nm seems so fast that Intel could have skipped 32nm and went straight to 22nm from 45nm. I blame Bulldozer for this, for raising expectations too high.

 

[Vesku]

Blame portable computing, Intel and to some extent AMD are in a rush to cut off ARM's push upwards into their markets.

 

[StinkyPinky]

Is ARM going to be redundant once Intel start getting to say...14nm cpu's? They're going to be pretty powerful with very low power requirements.

 

[tatertot]

The transition to 22nm seems so fast that Intel could have skipped 32nm and went straight to 22nm from 45nm.

Remember that Intel first shipped 32nm parts in Q4 2009, and launched Westmere in Q1 2010.


So 32nm will be around for the standard ~2 years before 22nm takes over.

 

[Atreidin]

Is ARM going to be redundant once Intel start getting to say...14nm cpu's? They're going to be pretty powerful with very low power requirements.

What? Of course ARM will be the wave of the future and replace all other CPUs in every single situation. I thought that blind belief in that statement, without any real in-depth analysis, was a prerequisite for posting here. At least that it what it seems like with so many posts of people declaring how sure they are that ARM will become ubiquitous everywhere while Intel sits on its hands with a dumb look on its face.

 

[sangyup81]

Is ARM going to be redundant once Intel start getting to say...14nm cpu's? They're going to be pretty powerful with very low power requirements.

ARM will be shrinking as well. While both Intel and ARM processors will get more powerful and use less electricity, I believe that Intel processors will always be more powerful while ARM processors will always use less electricity at a given price point.

 

[tatertot]

ARM will be shrinking as well.

Only to the extent that any foundry can keep up with Intel on the process front.

 

[Idontcare]

ARM will be shrinking as well. While both Intel and ARM processors will get more powerful and use less electricity, I believe that Intel processors will always be more powerful while ARM processors will always use less electricity at a given price point.

"Always" is a rather strong assertion.

There was a few years there where it was assumed AMD would always use less power than Intel because of SOI...then along came 65nm.

 

[antisocialmunky]

Not really a bet when Intel has at least 2 Fabs running 22nm and GloFo is scrambling to convert 45nm lines to 32nm. That's the oddest thing about AMD's choice to focus on clockspeeds with BD, Intel with a lot more resources had trouble doing just that. Did AMD management know something about the future of chip fabrication or did marketing take over the design helm?

As for IB, looking good for portable computing market next year.

Intel was ahead of its time sorta

I would start expecting diminishing returns from process reduction. Its not a magic bullet just like parallelism and clock speed.

Well until you find that molecular/protein transistor.

 

[ELopes580]

"Always" is a rather strong assertion.

There was a few years there where it was assumed AMD would always use less power than Intel because of SOI...then along came 65nm.

Then 45nm, after that 32nm; while 22nm looks promising.

 

[sangyup81]

"Always" is a rather strong assertion.

There was a few years there where it was assumed AMD would always use less power than Intel because of SOI...then along came 65nm.

I figured "at a given price point" was enough to cover myself :sneaky:

 

[IlllI]

when can we expect these out again? q1 or q2 2012?

 

[exar333]

Intel was ahead of its time sorta

I would start expecting diminishing returns from process reduction. Its not a magic bullet just like parallelism and clock speed.

Well until you find that molecular/protein transistor.

It is not just the process, but HOW it is implemented. Look no further than GloFo 32nm vs. Intel 32nm. A world of difference there.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

when can we expect these out again? q1 or q2 2012?

original rumors suggested april/may time frame, although this sounds like they're ahead of that schedule, although it's likely the first several batches will go to the HPs and Dells before we end users can grab them for our BYO rigs

 

[paul878]

My 2600k is no where near fully been utilized playing Battle Field 3, I don't see the need of a faster CPU for at-least 2 years. If Intel would open up their fab and help Nvida and AMD make their GPU that would revolutionize industry and bring back some real excitements.

 

[nyker96]

CEO Paul Otellini confirmed that Ivy Bridge 22 nm processor volume production has already begun, which is a rather significant achievement as there have been apparently no major hiccups in the implementation of its 3D transistor technology. There has always been the question how Intel defines "volume", but vice president Mooly Eden told me years ago that Intel would only consider a production process volume production if it affects "millions" of processors.

Intel also stated that Ivy bridge is on target for a late Q4 "qualification for sale", which means that Intel will be begin shipping final products to its customers in the second half of the quarter. This will allow Intel to maintain its tick-tock cadence and keep the claim that a production shrink has been introduced in yet another uneven year (and so that it can state that its 22 nm chips were released in 2011). Of course, that does not mean that you will be able to buy those chips in 2011. According to Otellini, first Ivy Bridge systems should become available in Spring 2012. As Ivy Bridge is introduced and ramping up, Intel expects that its profit margins will improve as well.

Sandy Bridge has, despite an initial hiccup, worked out well for Intel. The company is on track to report $55 billion of revenue for 2011, up more than $11 billion over 2010.

Souce: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/ivy-bridge-processor-release-22nm-3d-transistor,13753.html


Repost of a thread that was maybe 5 posts down on the mainscreen...let's do a little more work to check we aren't reposting existing thread material please.

(merging threads now)

Administrator Idontcare

 

[Kristijonas]

Good news. Also I suppose they will release their high-end processors first? (i7 then i5 then i3 then pentium)?

 

[jones377]

I bet there will be tons of leaks if they ship production CPUs out to partners 3-4 months ahead of launch. Good for us

 

[sm625]

So we'll have new notebooks at CES, and then in febby they'll announce a chipset bug, and by april we will actually have the parts!

 

[smakme7757]

Interesting news. I'm pretty geared up for another CPU launch now