Intel to Manufacture ARM CPUs for Altera

[beginner99]

Via reddit:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeanbaptiste/2013/10/29/exclusive-intel-opens-fabs-to-arm-chips/

At the ARM developers’ conference today, Intel partner Altera announced that the world’s largest semiconductor company will fabricate its ARM’s 64-bit chips starting next year.

While the article talks about leading edge process I'm personally in doubt that this is actually the case and it isn't on 22 nm.

EDIT:

Its in fact 14 nm:

http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1319919

Altera's deal in June to use Intel's 14 nm FinFET process took an interesting twist when the FPGA designer announced today it will pack ARM's 64-bit cores into its chips. That means Intel will fabricate starting in 2014 high-end Altera Stratix 10 parts that use four ARM Cortex-A53 cores.

But as I understand it this will be chips integrated in their FPGAs so they are not actually directly available.

 

[Nothingness]

Quite the contrary: the ARM CPU in these FPGA will be directly used for heterogeneous computation.

See this: http://www.altera.com/devices/fpga/stratix-fpgas/stratix10/stx10-index.jsp

 

[MisterMac]

If the're going to do this - it makes sense to open then up to specific niche\smaller players rather than .. Apple doesn't it?

 

[R0H1T]

If the're going to do this - it makes sense to open then up to specific niche\smaller players rather than .. Apple doesn't it?

Well it's not as if Intel could give them the volumes that Samsung or TSMC guarantees to ?

 

[ShintaiDK]

They cant give them the volumes without suffering their own products. Remember desktop is 22nm for the same reason. Alteras FPGA are very low volume and very high price. I doubt Samsung or Apple could even pay the price and come out with a profitable product.

 

[R0H1T]

They cant give them the volumes without suffering their own products. Remember desktop is 22nm for the same reason. Alteras FPGA are very low volume and very high price. I doubt Samsung or Apple could even pay the price and come out with a profitable product.

Like I said low volume plus high cost equals no deal. Apple certainly wouldn't go into something like that which massively erodes the margins of their staple business & if AMD could deliver even 90% of Intel's x86 performance you'd bet on Apple going with'em in a heart beat due to the obvious cost savings.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Like I said low volume plus high cost equals no deal. Apple certainly wouldn't go into something like that which massively erodes the margins of their staple business & if AMD could deliver even 90% of Intel's x86 performance you'd bet on Apple going with'em in a heart beat due to the obvious cost savings.

No they wouldnt. Apple without using the fastest components would instantly lose sales. When you pay a premium you expect the best.

 

[Nothingness]

They cant give them the volumes without suffering their own products. Remember desktop is 22nm for the same reason. Alteras FPGA are very low volume and very high price. I doubt Samsung or Apple could even pay the price and come out with a profitable product.

I'm not sure Intel could not sustain Apple volumes, but you are definitely correct that one can't deduce anything from what Altera and Intel do together given how peculiar the high-end FPGA market is.

 

[R0H1T]

No they wouldnt. Apple without using the fastest components would instantly lose sales. When you pay a premium you expect the best.

I tend to disagree with that, if AMD could give'em 90% of Intel's big core performance at 80% price then why would Apple not jump the ship? This is all hypothetical of course but think about it cause 10% cost savings would allow them to lower the retail prices of their Macs or further add to their profit margins, both of which would make more business sense than what you're suggesting.

 

[littlebluesmurf]

No they wouldnt. Apple without using the fastest components would instantly lose sales. When you pay a premium you expect the best.

Yet they still use 5400 rpm drives, sold Core 2 Duo based machines right up until mid 2011 and used Intel GMA 950 :whiste:

 

[Tuna-Fish]

FPGAs are sort of special in how they are *very* tolerant to errors, as something like 90% of the chip are structures that are all redundant, so any number of them can be broken and yet the chip as whole functions just fine.

Because of this, and how FPGAs really like speed and density, it makes very much sense to use them as "pipeclearers", products you fill the fabs with while the process still isn't really ready. Intel has done this for several nodes now.

Modern FPGAs also always contain some built-in SRAM arrays and microprocessors to deal with loads they are well suited to reduce required gate count of the designs built on them. On such designs, Intel has fabbed some ARM cores for a while now.

These news are a non-issue.

 

[gevorg]

Intel finally swallowed their pride for the sake of profits.

 

[CHADBOGA]

Intel finally swallowed their pride for the sake of profits.

No. When you see them making ARM chips that directly power a tablet or phone, then and only then can that be said.

 

[Exophase]

No. When you see them making ARM chips that directly power a tablet or phone, then and only then can that be said.

Or a laptop or a server.. but not something using an FPGA.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Intel finally swallowed their pride for the sake of profits.

Intel have been producing FPGAs for other companies for some years. But they also pay something like a 1000$ or more per chip.

 

[Exophase]

Intel have been producing FPGAs for other companies for some years. But they also pay something like a 1000$ or more per chip.

> $1000 per chip? Where are you hearing this?

 

[ShintaiDK]

> $1000 per chip? Where are you hearing this?

From an insider.

 

[NTMBK]

From an insider.

Don't do a Seronx on us now

 

[dbcoopernz]

I'm buying a couple of National Instruments FPGA boards for my lab (Xilinx Virtex-5 LX50 FPGA chips), and they cost about 4k euro each.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Don't do a Seronx on us now

Haha, no this is actually a real one. The first shipments is in that price range.

 

[Jimzz]

Intel have been producing FPGAs for other companies for some years. But they also pay something like a 1000$ or more per chip.

You mean wafer?

How much do these chips sell for? I can't see making up $1000 a chip with a profit.

 

[ShintaiDK]

You mean wafer?

How much do these chips sell for? I can't see making up $1000 a chip with a profit.

I think the cheapest 22nm version cost around 2000$. And then it just goes up and up. I think the most expensive one is 25000$.

As dbcoopernz said, tho different company, he bought some for 4000€ a pcs.

 

[Pilum]

Don't do a Seronx on us now

Unlike Seronx' stuff, this is quite believable if you look at the retail prices for top FPGAs. This Altera Stratix V GT model @mouser.com shows at 26,508 €. So the production prices are probably far higher than $1000, otherwise there'd be a 3500% markup between production and retail... which seems kinda steep.

 

[PPB]

Well, he has pulled various "Seronx" in the past, like the "no APUs in consoles" one, really fun stuff.

 

[rtsurfer]

Well, he has pulled various "Seronx" in the past, like the "no APUs in consoles" one, really fun stuff.

Lol...
Truee....