Question Intel Q3: Ouch

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VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,448
10,117
126
The bolded doesn't make any sense. Physical limits are the absolutes we can reach in our universe and no amount of economic resources even if infinite in theory will push us past those limits ...
You do know, that Moore's law, was not about technological limits, but rather, economic in nature, right? It is/was an economic law for the industry.
 
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ThatBuzzkiller

Golden Member
Nov 14, 2014
1,120
260
136
You do know, that Moore's law, was not about technological limits, but rather, economic in nature, right? It is/was an economic law for the industry.

Moore's Law is neither about technological limits or economic systems. It's not even a law at all, it's just an observation of a system we know to be the industry ...

My point ultimately still stands that CMOS technology has a limit and that we can't surpass those physical limits. We have to accept those limits as a part of our reality even if it is detrimental to the tech industry's growth so being in deniable about the physics behind the subject isn't helpful ...
 

SAAA

Senior member
May 14, 2014
541
126
116
You do know, that Moore's law, was not about technological limits, but rather, economic in nature, right? It is/was an economic law for the industry.

That, and it wasn't a law as so much an observation/prediction that didn't last too long as the actual time period for doubling kept changing year after year.

Not that I would care for transistors <1nm wide, give me a device 100 nm wide that acts on 100 different values at once at 1THz rate and then we talk. Doesn't matter if it has to use light, quantum effects or some other (today) nice phenomenon, as long as computational power keeps growing. With decent performance/power ratios of course.

We had eras in computing, this doom and gloom on physical limitations approaching is moot when seeing only linear scaling as the focus.
Remember we are still far from emulating that 1kg of brain matter at 20 W with 1 kg of silicon... gives an idea how far the limitations truly are.
 

Martimus

Diamond Member
Apr 24, 2007
4,488
153
106
Moore's Law is neither about technological limits or economic systems. It's not even a law at all, it's just an observation of a system we know to be the industry ...

My point ultimately still stands that CMOS technology has a limit and that we can't surpass those physical limits. We have to accept those limits as a part of our reality even if it is detrimental to the tech industry's growth so being in deniable about the physics behind the subject isn't helpful ...
There are linear limits that are pretty close, but we haven't even started getting close to any vertical limits. Stacking is likely the next big advancement that will have years of improvements before those limits are reached.
 
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Doug S

Platinum Member
Feb 8, 2020
2,484
4,046
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The so called 'limit' for CMOS transistors is actually bigger than just a single atom according to recent literature and even then we have to move off of silicon and use different materials to reach gate lengths as little as 1nm ..

Gate lengths are not 5nm or even 40nm right now, so worrying about what happens when gate lengths actually reach 1nm is not a concern.
 
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SAAA

Senior member
May 14, 2014
541
126
116
Moore's Law is neither about technological limits or economic systems. It's not even a law at all, it's just an observation of a system we know to be the industry ...

My point ultimately still stands that CMOS technology has a limit and that we can't surpass those physical limits. We have to accept those limits as a part of our reality even if it is detrimental to the tech industry's growth so being in deniable about the physics behind the subject isn't helpful ...

That, and it wasn't a law as so much an observation/prediction that didn't last too long as the actual time period for doubling kept changing year after year.

Not that I would care for transistors <1nm wide, give me a device 100 nm wide that acts on 100 different values at once at 1THz rate and then we talk. Doesn't matter if it has to use light, quantum effects or some other (today) nice phenomenon, as long as computational power keeps growing. With decent performance/power ratios of course.

We had eras in computing, this doom and gloom on physical limitations approaching is moot when seeing only linear scaling as the focus.
Remember we are still far from emulating that 1kg of brain matter at 20 W with 1 kg of silicon... gives an idea how far the limitations truly are.

I find it cool to compare the couple posts above: we start from the same premise but look at the bad or good side of it.

Bad is we are running out of CMOS steam, soon we'll need to change and it will be an expensive/slow step.

The good is there is so much explored areas today that we'll have a solution, be it CMOS++ or something else doesn't matter.
 

Hitman928

Diamond Member
Apr 15, 2012
5,595
8,783
136
Gate lengths are not 5nm or even 40nm right now, so worrying about what happens when gate lengths actually reach 1nm is not a concern.

Gate thickness has been a bigger concern in the past but Finfets and GAA tech (and new dielectrics before that) have allowed for continued progress without running into gate thickness issues. There are roadmaps with a clear path for at least the next 5 - 8 years or so, after that it becomes a bit sketchy. Not saying that they won't be able to continue to improve on silicon FETs, but the path gets a lot less clear from what I've seen (caveat being that I'm not a process engineer).
 

ThatBuzzkiller

Golden Member
Nov 14, 2014
1,120
260
136
There are linear limits that are pretty close, but we haven't even started getting close to any vertical limits. Stacking is likely the next big advancement that will have years of improvements before those limits are reached.

The laws of thermodynamics will eat any vertical logic stacking designs alive. The highest end CPUs and GPUs runs over hundreds of watts on unstacked logic dies ...

Stacked memory modules ? Sure but it's not happening with logic dies since at that point MCM designs would make more sense ...
 
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gorobei

Diamond Member
Jan 7, 2007
3,713
1,067
136
The laws of thermodynamics will eat any vertical logic stacking designs alive. The highest end CPUs and GPUs runs over hundreds of watts on unstacked logic dies ...

Stacked memory modules ? Sure but it's not happening with logic dies since at that point MCM designs would make more sense ...
i used to think the same about stacking, but tsmc and intel are seemingly pushing ahead on this. both mentioned peltier solutions to solve heating. but...

there was an article on some research paper about direct contact fluid cooling of the silicon using micro channel grooves on the silicon. assuming they use a novec type fluid and some serious sealing of the ihs, it doesnt seem as far fetched. the idea would be to keep the transistors from ever getting above an ambient temp by transporting heat directly from the gate. wild stuff but interesting none the less.
 

moinmoin

Diamond Member
Jun 1, 2017
4,994
7,765
136
Directly from the gate to what? Anything other than a refrigerant system is going to go above ambient. Those would add to costs, energy use, complexity, size, etc.
To the IHS. Moving the hotspot heat through liquid would be faster and more directed than though the silicon itself.
 

Hitman928

Diamond Member
Apr 15, 2012
5,595
8,783
136
I don't think they are talking about cooling down to the gate level, that doesn't make any sense unless they are going to drastically rework how chips are made, and I mean drastically. Is there a link to this proposed technique? I would expect it to be more of a backgrind to thin the die and then applying something ontop of the die (since they are flip chip).
 

gorobei

Diamond Member
Jan 7, 2007
3,713
1,067
136
Last edited:

Hitman928

Diamond Member
Apr 15, 2012
5,595
8,783
136
found a link, might need to bone up on your french or find a translation. dont think this where i originally heard about it.


Thanks. As I suspected, they are not changing how the chips are made to apply cooling "at the gate" but are using the backside of the chip, where the TIM and heatsink would be applied traditionally. It's cool research. I don't know how practical it is from a reliability or cost perspective, but it's very interesting and if they can figure out how to make it reliable and affordable, could allow for die stacking of even very high performance chips.
 

NostaSeronx

Diamond Member
Sep 18, 2011
3,688
1,222
136
Whatever happened to that black diamond substrate replacement for bulk substrate.

https://www.neocoat.ch/ =>
"Typical thermal conductivity of neoDiam® coating can be up to more than 1500 W/m.K, which is 10 time higher than that of silicon. Coatings up to 30 microns thick (or more) on 300 mm silicon wafers provide excellent heat spreading at the chip level. Putting diamond material, which is a passive heat spreader consuming no power, as close as possible to the heat generating junctions, results in a structure where the thermal conductivity of the diamond layer immediately spreads heat away from the junction and reduces junction temperatures."

But as always there is an Intel patent => https://patents.google.com/patent/US7492041B2

¯\_(ツ)_/¯, more advanced graphene substrate types have a capability of going up to 10,000 w/mK...
 
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scannall

Golden Member
Jan 1, 2012
1,948
1,640
136
Intel is in a 1000% better position in every aspect of financial measures than AMD was 12 years ago.
I don't believe anyone has suggested Intel is doomed. They are in for a pretty rough patch is all. And I doubt they will ever have that huge lead in everything again. But that's good for all of us. Now they have to actually try and innovate instead of just print money.
 

misuspita

Senior member
Jul 15, 2006
407
467
136
Yes, Intel is in no way doomed. And the same thing that prevented AMD to get more marketshare 15 years ago, prevents it doing it now, and this is the quantity of silicon it can produce. If Intel disappeared now from the face of the Earth, AMD could not supply all the server, desktop and mobile chips needed worldwide.
So Intel will get on by at least 5-10 more years even if it did not retake the performance crown. there is no-one at this moment to supply all that demand. But if nothing changes, the fabs will became obsolete for top-of-the-line CPUs and if they will not perfect their 7-5-3nm nodes, they will be in trouble. At the moment they are ok. Global Foundries disappeared in 3 years from the front line of CPU manufacturing when they could not make their advanced nodes. How long will it take Intel if they cannot make another advanced node and TSMC can, and grows their wafer output to eventually full the AMD needs?
 

Qwertilot

Golden Member
Nov 28, 2013
1,604
257
126
Yes, Intel is in no way doomed. And the same thing that prevented AMD to get more marketshare 15 years ago, prevents it doing it now, and this is the quantity of silicon it can produce. If Intel disappeared now from the face of the Earth, AMD could not supply all the server, desktop and mobile chips needed worldwide.
So Intel will get on by at least 5-10 more years even if it did not retake the performance crown. there is no-one at this moment to supply all that demand. But if nothing changes, the fabs will became obsolete for top-of-the-line CPUs and if they will not perfect their 7-5-3nm nodes, they will be in trouble. At the moment they are ok. Global Foundries disappeared in 3 years from the front line of CPU manufacturing when they could not make their advanced nodes. How long will it take Intel if they cannot make another advanced node and TSMC can, and grows their wafer output to eventually full the AMD needs?

Well that's fascinating, because it won't be a continuous thing for TSMC. They'd have to build new fabs specifically to displace Intel's volume. That would obviously be an absolutely enormous capital investment so they'd need to be really quite confident.

You can see that driving them/Intel into some sort of deal of the sort discussed above.
 
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VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,448
10,117
126
Intel is also very adept at financial engineering. Unfortunately Intel doesn't sell financial products, maybe it should consider joining that market.
I was going to suggest the very same thing. Sears and GM, both had "Sears Financial" and "GM Financial". Why not "Intel Financial" or "Intel Capital" or something.
 

DrMrLordX

Lifer
Apr 27, 2000
21,802
11,157
136
With all the issues with Intel and its foundries, what are the chances of NVIDIA buying Intel at a low PE? This will make them a direct competitor to AMD in most areas.

Zero. nVidia is buying ARM, not Intel. They can't/won't do both.

Intel is also very adept at financial engineering. Unfortunately Intel doesn't sell financial products, maybe it should consider joining that market.

Sounds like something General Electric did years ago.
 

Doug S

Platinum Member
Feb 8, 2020
2,484
4,046
136
Gate thickness has been a bigger concern in the past but Finfets and GAA tech (and new dielectrics before that) have allowed for continued progress without running into gate thickness issues. There are roadmaps with a clear path for at least the next 5 - 8 years or so, after that it becomes a bit sketchy. Not saying that they won't be able to continue to improve on silicon FETs, but the path gets a lot less clear from what I've seen (caveat being that I'm not a process engineer).

The process roadmap has always been blank when you go 10 years out, it isn't like back in 1985 they had a roadmap with everything planned out to 1995, let alone 2020.

The industry doesn't need to know where it is going in 10 years for companies ASML and Canon to build the next generation of equipment. ITRS serves that industry, so they don't need to care beyond that horizon, even though there are obviously some people at places like IBM or academia doing blue sky research further out. Even with the roadmap, we end up seeing detours like how EUV was delayed and delayed and delayed and we ended up doing double and even quadruple patterning on 193nm sources. EUV was out near the end of the roadmap for at least a decade until they were finally able to make it work, but it didn't halt progress in the meantime.

I'm sure there will be similar detours if high NA EUV is delayed, and we'll have to see whether they can go to an even shorter "beyond EUV" wavelength or can make e-beam fast enough for mass production. As long as there are some companies willing to fund that exploration, they'll find a way like they always have in the past.

Even if TSMC ended up the last man standing at the leading edge of logic, there will still be the big DRAM firms who need to keep shrinking (though their "process name" metrics are different, they work in the same process domain - Samsung has just begun making DRAM using EUV) so there will be companies willing to fund this because demand for more RAM has never stopped even during shortages when prices shoot up.
 

maddie

Diamond Member
Jul 18, 2010
4,787
4,771
136
The process roadmap has always been blank when you go 10 years out, it isn't like back in 1985 they had a roadmap with everything planned out to 1995, let alone 2020.

The industry doesn't need to know where it is going in 10 years for companies ASML and Canon to build the next generation of equipment. ITRS serves that industry, so they don't need to care beyond that horizon, even though there are obviously some people at places like IBM or academia doing blue sky research further out. Even with the roadmap, we end up seeing detours like how EUV was delayed and delayed and delayed and we ended up doing double and even quadruple patterning on 193nm sources. EUV was out near the end of the roadmap for at least a decade until they were finally able to make it work, but it didn't halt progress in the meantime.

I'm sure there will be similar detours if high NA EUV is delayed, and we'll have to see whether they can go to an even shorter "beyond EUV" wavelength or can make e-beam fast enough for mass production. As long as there are some companies willing to fund that exploration, they'll find a way like they always have in the past.

Even if TSMC ended up the last man standing at the leading edge of logic, there will still be the big DRAM firms who need to keep shrinking (though their "process name" metrics are different, they work in the same process domain - Samsung has just begun making DRAM using EUV) so there will be companies willing to fund this because demand for more RAM has never stopped even during shortages when prices shoot up.
Yep, we're always running out of resources 20-30 yrs down the road. The answer is why invest in looking for something with no possible returns until at least 20-30 yrs have passed. To feel secure?
 
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