What is Intel's 2016 strategy?

[Mondozei]

AMD's Zen is coming out in Q3 2016 according to Sweclockers.

Skylake, the whole range save Skylake-E, is out this summer, no artificial delays here.
Intel's guy in the gulf says that we should expect 10 nm in H1 2017.

Here's the Wikipedia article on 10 nm.

Officially we should see the introduction of 10 nm in 2016, but no real products until the year after that(at the earliest).
Broadwell at 14 nm has seen a token number of CPUs shipping in 2014 but the vast majority are coming out in H1 2015, so that cadence is broken.

This leaves us with Intel in 2016. No new arch and no new node is coming in 2016. This is quite a gamble if Zen turns out to be successful.

 

[smangular]

As much as I want to see good competition, what is the chance AMD's Zen is a home run? They have so much ground to make up and Intel can easily do a Skylake Refresh in 2016.

 

[positivedoppler]

Zen is for servers, no plan for desktop zen in 2016

 

[III-V]

This is quite a gamble if Zen turns out to be successful.

That's an astronomically large "if." Not really much of a gamble there. Even if it's successful, Intel can always play the price game and win.

Skylake will probably be pretty similar to Haswell -- it'll get a refresh halfway through its lifespan, to be finally succeeded by Cannonlake half a year later.

Intel might start becoming profitable next year in their mobile division. Their 14nm modems should be a goldmine, and Broxton and SoFIA 14nm should make them very competitive, finally.

 

[frozentundra123456]

I agree. Zen in the gamble. I will be surprised if it competes with current i5s, much less skylake and 10nm. If in fact 10 nm comes out in FH 2107, that gives Zen less than a year on the market before yet another new chip comes out.

 

[SOFTengCOMPelec]

One way of looking at the current Intel/14nm/Broadwell situation, is that Intel sort of over-reached/over-stretched themselves technologically speaking.
I.e. They were over-confident/ambitious, which may have caused the Broadwell/14nm project as a result, to have a number of problems (especially yield issues), delays and other bad stuff.
This perhaps has resulted in the Broadwell/14nm, apparently (if rumors are to be believed), to be somewhat shelved, in favour of Skylake, being introduced shortly after a limited (on desktop at least) Broadwell release.

Something like this, happened many years ago (approx 1999++, Athlon vs Pentium3, I think), when AMD cpus were actually faster/better than Intels (who had brought out a bad/relatively-slow cpu), and I think they (AMD) kept the lead for about 5 years, until Intel managed to get the speed crown back again.
But if it happens again, we are probably talking about MUCH LESS dramatic catch ups. I.e. Amd may have a chance in 2016 Zen to somewhat catch up, NOT be 10%..20% faster, like this source seems to be saying.

The AMD Athlon processor launched on June 23, 1999, with general availability by August '99.[citation needed] It launched at 500 MHz and was, on average, 10% faster than the Pentium III at the same clock for Business applications, and even faster (~20%) for gaming workloads.

So if Intel have partially or fully messed up, and AMD in 2016 brings out a successful (especially in single thread performance) cpu, which is power efficient enough (i.e. not too bad compared to Intel). We might see interesting results in the market place.

Of course the reverse could happen, Intel may recover with Skylake and beyond, and AMD could be late and/or under-performing (a bit like Bulldozer was, in many peoples opinion) with Zen.

I'm look forward to Zen, for 3 reasons:

(1)...It may actually be near enough in performance to Intels chips, to make it a worthwhile purchase, at lower cost.

(2)...Multi-cored, fast Arm chips will be an interesting option, especially if they have a reasonable turn of speed and are cheap enough.

(3)...Zen could at least force/make Intel to lower the price of some/all of their cpus, which I would like to see.

 

[Fjodor2001]

Zen is for servers, no plan for desktop zen in 2016

Source?

 

[Alatar]

What is Intel's 2016 strategy?

To beat AMD's 2016 products in performance, power consumption, and profit margins with 2016 skylake products?

Should be obvious no?

And honestly the chances of that strategy not working are slim.

 

[blastingcap]

To beat AMD's 2016 products in performance, power consumption, and profit margins with 2016 skylake products?

Should be obvious no?

And honestly the chances of that strategy not working are slim.

Intel can pretty much let AMD self-destruct. Actually it's been that way for some time now.

 

[Shehriazad]

Zen is for servers, no plan for desktop zen in 2016

Wat?

As far as I know Zen will be released under the name "Summit Ridge"(16/14nm) in 2k16 and Excavator cores will also make it on to the same FM3 socket under the name of "Bristol Ridge" (28nm)

Both supposedly are going to be released with DDR4 controllers...that's the last thing I heard...and a quick search on google gives me no such info that this was cancelled. Not even rumors.


That said....Intel will likely just follow it's "roadmap" and would only ever have to adjust anything IF AMD manages to produce a competitive chip...big IF.

 

[NTMBK]

If AMD actually shows up with something competitive, hopefully it will push Intel to drop the prices on the -E series chips. Remember where the original Pentium Emergency Edition came from, after all Affordable octa-cores for all!

 

[Shehriazad]

My only real reason why I hope that AMD produces something to challenge the high end area...price fights ahoy. xD I'm not quite insane enough to dish out $1000-$1200 for that current Intel top of the line CPU...while I would love to do that...I don't have that kind of pocket change to throw at my PCs....$1200 would be something I would spend on an entire PC...not one component.

Especially since I need 3 of them at a time...*sigh*

 

[witeken]

AMD's Zen is coming out in Q3 2016 according to Sweclockers.

Skylake, the whole range save Skylake-E, is out this summer, no artificial delays here.
Intel's guy in the gulf says that we should expect 10 nm in H1 2017.

Here's the Wikipedia article on 10 nm.

Officially we should see the introduction of 10 nm in 2016, but no real products until the year after that(at the earliest).
Broadwell at 14 nm has seen a token number of CPUs shipping in 2014 but the vast majority are coming out in H1 2015, so that cadence is broken.

This leaves us with Intel in 2016. No new arch and no new node is coming in 2016. This is quite a gamble if Zen turns out to be successful.

*Your article of 10nm in H1'17 has been debunked by Intel.
*Intel has said 10nm production would start in 2015.
*Intel is at this very moment spending (see CFO commentary) as if HVM would start in Q4 or early next year.
*Also see the 10nm timing in this silde: http://www9.pcmag.com/media/images/409118-intel-technology-roadmap.jpg?thumb=y
*Mark Bohr said he doesn't expect problems for the 10nm node.

So Intel strategy for 2016 will be to
*Further reduce mobile loss
*Gain smartphone and tablet footprint with
- Broxton
- SoFIA MID
- SoFIA 2
*Announce 10nm successors for these product with early '17 launch
*Launch Cannonlake for desktop, mobile and Core M (with good availability in Q4)
*Increase silicon photonics sales
*Continue 'disruptive' 3D NAND strategy
*Sell Knights Landing, announce more about Knights Hill for H2'17 launch
*15% CAGR in DCG
*Something with IoT
*Continue no-cables initiative, NUC, Next-NUC, Compute Stick, fanless strategy
*Maintain flat or slight growth in PC
*Overtake Qualcomm in connectivity
*Announce Core for smartphone ^^ (possibluh for iPhone 7)
*Announce/use EUV?

 

[ShintaiDK]

So let me get this right, the massively underfunded Zen/K12 will somehow turn up as a direct miracle about equal to the reborn of christ.

In the same time Intel will have huge delays because some Wikipedia article may state so? Not that I even see this delay in the article.

And somehow this will make AMD competitive?

This thread is made up of fantasy.

 

[seitur]

@OP

You and all of us should be incredibly happy if AMD manages to finally come out with a CPU that is barely competetive in some selected fields of CPU market.

Suggesting that AMD will release something that will beat mainstream Intel line so much that it will put Intel on desperate defense is sc-fi.

I like sc-fi myself, but come on... It is boring if it's just fiction. It needs grounds in science to really be interesting.

 

[imaheadcase]

If AMD CPU/GPU market is still around by then..

 

[witeken]

If I were from the AMD camp, I'd now ask why AMD has to be discussed in an Intel thread :thumbsdown:. /irony

 

[Shehriazad]

If AMD CPU/GPU market is still around by then..

Oh stop joking. Even a company that amasses debt...if it is as big as AMD...it's not going to just disappear just like that.

That would be the least profitable way to go at it, anyway. If RX 300, Zen and server+embedded/semicustom fail...then you might see AMD getting bought up by another company and possibly see their products vanish, with their tech being used for new projects.

I wouldn't talk about AMDs stuff disappearing until H1 2017...once we actually know if their stuff has failed or not...because no matter how bad it looks right now...RX 300 and Zen product lines WILL see the light of day.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Oh stop joking. Even a company that amasses debt...if it is as big as AMD...it's not going to just disappear just like that.

That would be the least profitable way to go at it, anyway. If RX 300, Zen and server+embedded/semicustom fail...then you might see AMD getting bought up by another company and possibly see their products vanish, with their tech being used for new projects.

I wouldn't talk about AMDs stuff disappearing until H1 2017...once we actually know if their stuff has failed or not...because no matter how bad it looks right now...RX 300 and Zen product lines WILL see the light of day.

There are 2 sides of gone. One that you describe. And the other that most refers to, gone from the PC segment. AMD expects a 15% company revenue drop in Q1, mainly in the PC division.

 

[mrmt]

This leaves us with Intel in 2016. No new arch and no new node is coming in 2016. This is quite a gamble if Zen turns out to be successful.

An ant has no quarrel with a boot. Zen doesn't have much influence in Intel strategy, if any influence at all. I think this year Intel will be focusing on improving the cost structure of their SoCs relative to their ARM counterparts in order to allow Intel to get a solid foot on the mobile market. This is *the* battle Intel must fight, otherwise their IDM model will be in jeopardy on 7nm.

 

[Flapdrol1337]

Maybe their strategy is to finally bring something to get people to upgrade their 2500K systems.

 

[positivedoppler]

Wat?

As far as I know Zen will be released under the name "Summit Ridge"(16/14nm) in 2k16 and Excavator cores will also make it on to the same FM3 socket under the name of "Bristol Ridge" (28nm)

Both supposedly are going to be released with DDR4 controllers...that's the last thing I heard...and a quick search on google gives me no such info that this was cancelled. Not even rumors.


That said....Intel will likely just follow it's "roadmap" and would only ever have to adjust anything IF AMD manages to produce a competitive chip...big IF.

Maybe im wrong but this is based on what i read not too long ago that carrizo desktop will be 2016 so cant have them overlap. It just a guess sine I also wanted ad Lisa wanted to tackle servers first

 

[Mondozei]

*Your article of 10nm in H1'17 has been debunked by Intel.
*Intel has said 10nm production would start in 2015.

1. It's not "my" article.

2. The guy in the article is from Intel himself, so are you saying that Intel are "debunking" themselves? That doesn't make any sense at all. ^_^

3. 10 nm production could mean anything. What matters is when actual products are out and if you can give a credible source(i.e. someone from Intel) saying that they will have 10 nm products out in 2016 then that would be helpful(and not a one-off token product á la Broadwell-Y).

 

[meloz]

What is Intel's 2016 strategy?

Same as their 2015 strategy: more profits. :sneaky:

 

[witeken]

2. The guy in the article is from Intel himself, so are you saying that Intel are "debunking" themselves? That doesn't make any sense at all. ^_^

http://www.kitguru.net/components/c...ake-chips-in-early-2017-retracts-its-promise/

Because

“We do think that we've been giving too much insight too far in advance and so we'll talk about 10nm some time in the next 12 or 18 months [from Nov '14] and when it's appropriate.” Stacy Smith, CFO Intel, IM’14

“We felt like we went on a little early with 14nm as far as timing and performance and features and we saw actually competitors adjust to that. So we're gonna be a little bit more prudent, a little smarter about signaling to the industry exactly when, what and where. And you'll have to trust a little bit the 50 year history we have with Moore's Law and that we should be able to keep it going for 51 or 52 years. So we're gonna be a little careful there about that signaling exactly when, what and where.” --Brian Krzanich, CEO Intel, IM’14

3. 10 nm production could mean anything. What matters is when actual products are out and if you can give a credible source(i.e. someone from Intel) saying that they will have 10 nm products out in 2016 then that would be helpful(and not a one-off token product á la Broadwell-Y).

Of course I can't give you source. Else we wouldn't be here having this little discussion. But if you gather enough information, you can do some meaningful speculation. So when Stacy Smith says

“But you are seeing in the fourth quarter, you’re seeing the front edge of the startup cost associated with the 10-nanometer and that’s kind of right in line with the historical timing of what you’d expect.” Stacy Smith, CFO Intel, IM’14

or Mark Bohr says

The heady challenges of design at 14 nm made the node later than expected for Intel, closer to a three-year than to Intel’s typical two-year cadence. “We don’t expect we’ll have similar problems at 10 nm, because we’ve learned and we’re trying harder,” he said.

and Brian Krzanich says

"We have done no changes or shift to our 10-nanometer schedule but we won’t really talk about 10-nanometer schedules until next year."

Then it is simply wrong to assume 10nm will launch in another year than 2016, which Tick-Tock imposes. Intel is not a novice when it comes to Moore's Law...