After Anti-M1 Ads, Intel Wants to Make Future Apple Silicon Chips

[Zdigital2015]

We've heard it all before (e.g. in the Netburst vs. Opteron era). But there's a reason why they have survived in this extremely competitive market for 50 years.

IBM was a force for 50 years and things changed for them. Things are different this time with Intel. There’s a definite weariness of Intel at this point by all involved. They missed the boat on the mobile era that we are living in now. They drag their asses on almost everything, trying to milk the absolute most profit out of it to the actual detriment of the rest of the industry as they still dominate the desktop PC market and enterprise server CPU market. They’ve eaten their competition and took down way more innovative CPUs (DEC Alpha, Clipper, PA-RISC, MIPS, SPARC, PowerPC, et al). But they are no longer the 900 lb gorilla to a lot of people. Their domination of the CPU market has led to tremendous stagnation with regard to alternative architectures. Until now. With Apple tossing Intel out the door and Intel’s lack of penetration in mobile, all that is needed is for MS to gain some (liquid) courage and start divesting themselves of the baggage that is Intel. Will it happen? Too early to tell. Would it be nice to see it happen? Yes. Intel has never really innovated the in the PC space and sure as heck didn’t do it until Apple became a customer.

 

[dojoman]

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

 

[Zdigital2015]

Broadwell, Airmont, Skylake, Goldmont, Kaby Lake, Coffee Lake, Goldmont Plus, Whiskey Lake, Amber Lake, Cascade Lake, Comet Lake, Cooper Lake, Rocket Lake.

I think Intel has stayed drunk since Whiskey Lake, but that’s not a scientific opinion.

 

[pshufd]

IBM was a force for 50 years and things changed for them. Things are different this time with Intel. There’s a definite weariness of Intel at this point by all involved. They missed the boat on the mobile era that we are living in now. They drag their asses on almost everything, trying to milk the absolute most profit out of it to the actual detriment of the rest of the industry as they still dominate the desktop PC market and enterprise server CPU market. They’ve eaten their competition and took down way more innovative CPUs (DEC Alpha, Clipper, PA-RISC, MIPS, SPARC, PowerPC, et al). But they are no longer the 900 lb gorilla to a lot of people. Their domination of the CPU market has led to tremendous stagnation with regard to alternative architectures. Until now. With Apple tossing Intel out the door and Intel’s lack of penetration in mobile, all that is needed is for MS to gain some (liquid) courage and start divesting themselves of the baggage that is Intel. Will it happen? Too early to tell. Would it be nice to see it happen? Yes. Intel has never really innovated the in the PC space and sure as heck didn’t do it until Apple became a customer.

I don't see how Intel or AMD overcomes Apple's ARM Decoder Advantage without changing their ISA. Apple doesn't have to make general purpose chips either. They can just make chips to run macOS and iOS.

 

[hortod1]

Epic self-own if there ever was one

 

[Zdigital2015]

None of which we had to endure in the UK, although we did have the risible Chevette, loathsome Cavalier and heinous Victor. Their Zafira was great if you love spontaneous fires. All award winning vehicles it seems

The Chevy Monza (a coupe) was known for its engine fires and without adequate firewall protection things went south quickly for all involved. Every time I rode with my parents in the back seat, I wondered if it was the last time.

 

[dwaltwhit]

Ahh how the turn tables have turned!

 

[Mac... nificent]

The Chevy Monza (a coupe) was known for its engine fires and without adequate firewall protection things went south quickly for all involved. Every time I rode with my parents in the back seat, I wondered if it was the last time.

Unsafe at any speed.

 

[DevNull0]

Gonna need a lot of rope after how thoroughly you burned that bridge, lol.

Also, you didn't just lose a contract, Intel, you fell behind. Good luck building Apple's 3nm chips.

This is business, not a school yard squabble. **If** Intel can build the chips Apple wants with the best combination of reliability and price Apple will sign with them and the marketing campaign would not even factor into the decision. First, this would be Apple's fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders and second, the Apple execs are not stupid enough to screw over their profits over some ads.

That said, it's a pretty big If right now, but if you read the summary, Intel is spending $20 billion to build two chip fabs in the US. If Intel can't offer Apple a good option after that kind of investment, something is seriously wrong.

Especially given the current state of the chip business world-wide, this is good news for Intel, good news for Apple (whether or not they go with Intel in end -- more supply and competition can only be good for Apple's profits), good news for the USA, and good news for pretty much everyone on the planet who is not financially involved in a pre-existing chip fab.

A little name-calling in a few commercials is less than an inaudible bit of background noise on this.

 

[Zdigital2015]

I don't see how Intel or AMD overcomes Apple's ARM Decoder Advantage without changing their ISA. Apple doesn't have to make general purpose chips either. They can just make chips to run macOS and iOS.

I cannot speak to CPU design as I am a ham sandwich but the cruft of all the legacy x86 baggage has to go. At least the support for 16-bit and 32-bit applications. If that’s even possible. Again, I’m a ham sandwich.

 

[crazy dave]

Intel will have to change their “interface” to the design data, if they’re anything like they were back in the 2000s. They used mils instead of microns, all their terminology was weird and non-standard, they used their own weird file formats, etc. They were not set up to accept an arbitrary gdsii file from an outside source, even if it met their design rules, and their non-standard terminology made it hard to even understand their requirements. When I interviewed intel employees and asked them what their experience was, the words they used were not words used anywhere else in the industry.

I’ve read they are indeed switching to standard industry tooling and interfaces with this switch.

 

[TECK]

I really hope Apple will never do business anymore with Intel, or they can extort them to get ridiculously cheap manufacturing prices, as payback for being laughed at when they asked Intel to make the chips for iPhone. In current situation, I would give Intel 5 years before they disappear, they have zero innovation momentum.

 

[Kpjoslee]

More competition on foundry business is never a bad thing.

 

[pshufd]

I really hope Apple will never do business anymore with Intel, or they can extort them to get ridiculously cheap manufacturing prices, as payback for being laughed at when they asked Intel to make the chips for iPhone. In current situation, I would give Intel 5 years before they disappear, they have zero innovation momentum.

Apple would prefer multiple vendors but you don't want to piss them off for too long (AMD, nVidia).

 

[jlocker]

We need to start making computer chips once again in the United States. For statements China government made during the pandemic that they have a lot of material that go into making vaccines products and could hold back production. If I was Intel and Apple would join forces to start building more processors in the USA. Do we really want a foreign power controlling all computer chip manufacturing In the world? Don’t think that it is a good idea.

 

[pshufd]

We need to start making computer chips once again in the United States. For statements China government made during the pandemic that they have a lot of material that go into making vaccines products and could hold back production. If I was Intel and Apple would join forces to start building more processors in the USA. Do we really want a foreign power controlling all computer chip manufacturing In the world? Don’t think that it is a good idea.

Apple would be a scary company if they had their own fabs.

 

[Maconplasma]

no, TSMC manufactures the chips for Apple ... and it's a single source right now. It'a a business, and if Apple can get an advantage using Intel as a manufacturer in the future, they will

Ah I wasn't aware of that. Apple ain't gonna go with Intel.

 

[Fusionskies]

Wow Intel, you need to pull yourself together... Like a bad breakup.

 

[HVDynamo]

I am not so sure about that! I do not think Intel is capable of making those advanced chips anymore!

They are not capable of that today, but that doesn't mean they can't catch up. Intel does have vast cash reserves to pull from to catch up. They just need to make sure they have the talent required to do so.

 

[Rigby]

IBM was a force for 50 years and things changed for them. Things are different this time with Intel. There’s a definite weariness of Intel at this point by all involved. They missed the boat on the mobile era that we are living in now. They drag their asses on almost everything, trying to milk the absolute most profit out of it to the actual detriment of the rest of the industry as they still dominate the desktop PC market and enterprise server CPU market. They’ve eaten their competition and took down way more innovative CPUs (DEC Alpha, Clipper, PA-RISC, MIPS, SPARC, PowerPC, et al).

If they were so innovative, why didn't they succeed? They had well-resourced companies behind them.

But they are no longer the 900 lb gorilla to a lot of people. Their domination of the CPU market has led to tremendous stagnation with regard to alternative architectures.

That makes no sense. There are reasons why they continued to dominate their market. When the Core architecture first came out, it blew everything else away for years. Even with TSMC's process adavantage, it took AMD over a decade to catch up again. And as you mentioned yourself, there were many alternative architectures. They just weren't good enough.

Until now. With Apple tossing Intel out the door and Intel’s lack of penetration in mobile, all that is needed is for MS to gain some (liquid) courage and start divesting themselves of the baggage that is Intel. Will it happen? Too early to tell. Would it be nice to see it happen? Yes. Intel has never really innovated the in the PC space and sure as heck didn’t do it until Apple became a customer.

It sounds to me like you have an emotional bias for whatever reason. Intel "never really innovated"? Seriously?

 

[incoherent_1]

Nothing new. Samsung has trashed Apple and they still make nearly all of the iPhone displays.

Business is business.

I agree, but with Intel there’s one big difference: Apple doesn’t need Intel.

They still go to Samsung because Samsung makes the best displays and Apple can’t easily scale up and build a display production line that rivals Samsung’s.

On the other hand, Apple already has a supply chain and partners to build ARM processors. Intel is lobbing insults at a company that is perfectly capable of succeeding without them, which is pretty stupid.

 

[Icelus]

Reminds me of this 2013 rumor:

Apple and Intel Have Reportedly Discussed Deal for Production of Future iPhone and iPad Chips

 

[crazy dave]

If they were so innovative, why didn't they succeed? They had well-resourced companies behind them.


That makes no sense. There are reasons why they continued to dominate their market. When the Core architecture first came out, it blew everything else away for years. Even with TSMC's process adavantage, it took AMD over a decade to catch up again. And as you mentioned yourself, there were many alternative architectures. They just weren't good enough.


It sounds to me like you have an emotional bias for whatever reason. Intel "never really innovated"? Seriously?

While it is silly to say that Intel never really innovated, Core by its second or third iteration put significant daylight in performance, the rest of his post isn’t bad.

The competing CPU companies were often not as well resourced as Intel and entrenched markets are extremely hard to overcome for new entrants. It often requires a novel market, like say mobile phones, for it to happen.

10 years ago every fab, including TSMC and GloFo, was behind, sometimes way behind, Intel in process.

But Intel’s process stagnated, they couldn’t keep designing “new” uarchs for 14nm, and the rest is history.

 

[throAU]

intel can court all they want, unless they get their process to be leading edge, better than TSMC, they're not going to get the deal.

maybe they'll be able to manufacture 3 year old AppleTV processors or something.

 

[cmaier]

I’ve read they are indeed switching to standard industry tooling and interfaces with this switch.

That’s going to cause a bit of culture shock there