Incoming Intel CEO Derides Company's Inability to 'Deliver Better Products' Than Apple's M1 Chip

[Bustermd]

Also a good interpretation.

I think Pat Gelsinger was simply trying to rally the troops at Intel. I don't believe he was trying to denigrate Apple.

He knows what Apple has been doing. The engineers at Intel know what Apple has been doing. Hell... everyone in the entire semiconductor industry has been paying attention to what Apple has done over the last decade starting with the A4

I bet these kinds of pep talks are happening at other companies to light a fire under their employees' asses... 🔥

Another way of looking at it is the bluster and chest-puffing can often be a sign of a person or organization that knows they are in trouble. Past success doesn't guarantee future success, but I think its human nature that we at times all fool ourselves into thinking that.

And Intel is not just in trouble from Apple: you have AMD gaining ground dramatically in the consumer/gamer/enthusiast PC sphere, you have NVIDIA buying out ARM holdings so who knows what they might do, you have Microsoft thinking of following Apple's lead for their own devices, and you have big tech moving toward ARM based solutions for their server farms.

 

[name99]

I was specifically responding to a claim about the current yield of their 10nm process.

There is no question that they ran into trouble a few years ago. I don't know the details, but contacts at Intel tell me it's because their initial goals were overly aggressive and they had to make several corrections which delayed their roadmap.


The node numbers are misleading. Intel's 10nm process actually has a higher transistor density than TSMC's 7nm (which is what current AMD CPUs are using). Intel's 7nm process will probably be up to par with TSMC's 5nm.

On what shipping Intel product?
The densest product Intel ships on 10nm that I know of is the Lakefield logic die, and that hits 49MTr/mm^2.
cf TSMC where mass volume SoCs routinely hit around 90%+ of the announced TSMC theoretical density.

That's part of why Intel is in such a mess! The foundries destroyed their yield chasing a density that the design side doesn't seem capable of using...

The same skepticism should be applied to your claims regarding yields. It is true that we don't know Intel yields or even their 10nm volumes. But what we do know is a constant stream delayed 10nm products. This is sometimes hidden because Intel has turned into a machine whose core competency is generating confusion about the difference between "code name, "announcement", "up and running", "production, "manufacturing", "launch", "volume manufacturing", "shipping" and "volume shipping", with enough time passing between every step that by the time you can actually buy the thing you've forgotten that it was announced three years ago and hinted at being available nine months ago.

 

[Rigby]

Altra performance is generally a little superior to Graviton 2 (no slight to Graviton 2, since it shipped a year earlier) and you CAN buy Altra.

Maybe we'll test those for the next project. But they'd have to be MUCH better or cheaper than their Intel/AMD counterparts to risk going with an unproven supplier and the potential software compatibility issues. We also have to develop for the platforms that our customers run, and that's still 95%+ x86.

ARM is not the first design that challenges x86 in the server space, and so far all of them have failed (including Intel's own Itanium). And AMD/Intel will not stand still.

 

[makitango]

Such empty promises. They lost every battle in the last few years and to suggest that they‘ll do better... how? In order to do that, they first have to do as great as Apple. Apple came to their conclusion that in order to open doors in terms of power efficiency, they need to leave the x86 world, and so they did invest heavily ever since the start of the iPhone. They invested more heavily again together with TSMC and got their second baby, thr M1, which is the poster child of chip innovation.
How does Intel think they will get either or both efficiency and power levels that the M1 gets with less cash than Apple? And even if they did, time would have passed and Apple would have surpassed them again. Not to mention Intel has the problem that their (enterprise) customers want them to continue to build on the x86 foundation so that they themselves don‘t need to adjust.

I don‘t dislike Intel but I don‘t see a future for a company whose ties are too strong with companies which are technologically and mentally stuck in the last millennium.

 

[name99]

Maybe we'll test those for the next project. But they'd have to be MUCH better or cheaper than their Intel/AMD counterparts to risk going with an unproven supplier and the potential software compatibility issues. We also have to develop for the platforms that our customers run, and that's still 95%+ x86.

ARM is not the first design that challenges x86 in the server space, and so far all of them have failed (including Intel's own Itanium). And AMD/Intel will not stand still.

That wasn't the question you asked!
You want to stick with x86, no-one's going to stop you. Hell, you could still buy an Itanium until about two days ago. There's no law against remaining obsolete for a long long time.
But if your competitors can move faster... AMZ certainly thinks it has an advantage in rolling out an ever larger fleet of ARMv8 products.

 

[Michael Scrip]

Gruber's take:

Incoming CEO of a Sand-Polishing Company in Oregon Makes Curious Remark

Ed Colligan in late 2006 was like the captain on The Titanic dismissing any concerns about icebergs as nonsense. Pat Gelsinger, speaking in early 2021, knows that Intel fell behind years ago — in an industry where it’s notoriously hard to catch up. He’s taking over a ship that already hit an...

daringfireball.net

As you’d imagine, Gelsinger’s description of Apple got a fair amount of attention, with most reports, including The Oregonian’s original, taking it as a derisive jab. Claim chowder material, if you will.

I doubt that’s how he meant it. It wasn’t a public statement, and we don’t have video or audio. So maybe he did mean it derisively. In which case, well, good luck. But I really doubt it. My guess is that if you heard him saying it, it would be obvious he was making a joke and referring to Apple in a jokey “they who shall not be named” way. As the incoming CEO of Intel, surely Gelsinger knows enough to see that Apple has completely eclipsed Intel. Apple’s chips are better designed, and thanks to fab partner TSMC, better made. This isn’t conjecture, these are facts, and computer chip facts are among the coldest and hardest facts in the world.

I don’t see that sort of blind bluster in Gelsinger’s description of “a lifestyle company in Cupertino”. The line comes across poorly in print, but my guess is that in person, he said it in a manner that wasn’t putting Apple down, per se, but rather building Intel up. “If they can do it, we can do it — we’re Intel.” It’s easy to imagine how such a line, played for a laugh, would work among an audience of Intel employees — who themselves are very much aware of Apple’s chipmaking prowess.

Again, the M1 Macs are out. Everyone at Intel knows they’re both faster and consume less power than Intel’s chips. And they know, because it’s already happened, that nearly the entire MacOS ecosystem made the transition just fine. Legacy Mac software isn’t going to buy Intel any time at all. And we haven’t even seen Apple’s professional caliber chips yet. They all know Apple’s Mac business was good business for Intel and now it’s gone. They lost it.

Gelsinger, speaking in early 2021, knows that Intel fell behind years ago — in an industry where it’s notoriously hard to catch up. He’s taking over a ship that already hit an iceberg and is in need of saving. Sometimes you talk trash about your opponent because you’re an idiot. But other times, you talk a little trash to fire up your own team.

This feels like that to me.

 

[Trusteft]

Yesterday, I begrudgingly sat through a 1 hour "preview" of Dell's upcoming enterprise product line for 2021 at work (we have about 3000 Macs in use and 7000 Dells). The Dell executive was confusing his Latitudes in the presentation, because surprise surprise, it's basically all the same stuff on a 14nm chip. Their biggest "brag" was that they designed a de-inclined hinge, similar to what Apple had in 2004-era iBooks... so you get an extra 1/2 inch on space when the lid's up behind an airline seat (which is so irrelevant this year it's frankly hilarious).

When I asked "why the dogmatic need to stick with Intel?" he had no answers. Then he made a claim of 22 hours of run time on their latest Latitude, and I told him "yeah, and with typical corporate mandated security stacks, people are lucky to see 4 hours in the real world - so that's underwhelming."

I have my doubts this conversation took place.

 

[chucker23n1]

I have my doubts this conversation took place.

It may be embellished a bit, but it's the typical kind of corporate rep stuff.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

I have my doubts this conversation took place.

But clap back at private 'sessions' isn't that unusual. I was at a Microsoft TechNet seminar, and they had the pompoms out for Windows 8, and were furiously dancing around proclaiming it 'the best OS Microsoft has ever released'. And then the Q&A started.

'Are you serious? We can't get our customers/clients to buy anything with Windows 8 on it'. 'We lost a deal because you stopped offering downgrade rights, so your 'best OS' is costing us deals and clients'. 'Your best? This OS is going over worse than Vista, and that says a lot. Vista sucked!'

We were left, through the many seminars over the years of Win 8, that Microsoft viewed the failure of 8 being that 'we' didn't push it hard enough, not that it just sucked.

The majority of the attendees demanded that Microsoft reinstate downgrade rights for systems bought from computer companies. I think, at the time, a reseller had to sell an OEM license to allow for downgrade rights, and weren't able to sell a license like that for systems bought through HP, and Dell, and others. Most, in the last seminar I attended, were quite mad about being blamed by Redmond for 'failing' them on Windows 8. 'We HAVE TRIED, but clients DON'T WANT 8! And we are losing money because clients are not buying new systems to avoid it!' Microsoft then did reinstate downgrades, and 8 is just a bad dream. Just like Vista, and Millennium Edition.

So, yeah, in the right setting, people give vendors 'the treatment'. They vent, even yell sometimes.

 

[Blackstick]

Absolutely Pinky! I'm in fact one of the nicer guys to our vendors, at least on our Desktop Architecture team... profanity and anger toward MS/Dell reps is pretty typical from our directors and VP.

 

[AdamNC]

Well a medical billing small business my neighbors work for of 40 plus employees are switching to Mac. Said neighbors both work there he is in IT. She is head of billing. The company bought 3 years ago “top of the line” HP laptops for all employees it was a major investment for a small business. They are 8th Gen i5 machines. All the same for everyone to just make it easier for IT and the employees themselves. Well 10 have died completely. Been replaced by warranty. And multiple other issues. A major malware attack cost them dearly. So after calling Apple they are getting a business loan and redoing the entire system. They just can not take the risks and issues with Microsoft and HP. They bought a single MBP M1 with 16/1T for each employees to try For a day. They pretty much can not wait. Many of them had the same things to say. Smoothness of the OS, and the speed. One apparently said now this is how a computer is supposed to run.

With the M1 and future AS chips let’s hope stories like this become more common.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

Well a medical billing small business my neighbors work for of 40 plus employees are switching to Mac. Said neighbors both work there he is in IT. She is head of billing. The company bought 3 years ago “top of the line” HP laptops for all employees it was a major investment for a small business. They are 8th Gen i5 machines. All the same for everyone to just make it easier for IT and the employees themselves. Well 10 have died completely. Been replaced by warranty. And multiple other issues. A major malware attack cost them dearly. So after calling Apple they are getting a business loan and redoing the entire system. They just can not take the risks and issues with Microsoft and HP. They bought a single MBP M1 with 16/1T for each employees to try For a day. They pretty much can not wait. Many of them had the same things to say. Smoothness of the OS, and the speed. One apparently said now this is how a computer is supposed to run.

With the M1 and future AS chips let’s hope stories like this become more common.

I had a client that started buying MBP's for their traveling staff. They had been hit with a lot of issues related to malware, and just reliability issues. They were looking for recommendations. I showed them my heavily dinged MBP that had a huge dent in it, and it was still working (a real metal outside sure helped that one survive). They were sold. They asked questions and a demonstration on connecting to their network from outside, and I easily showed them, and explained how the Mac OS was largely immune from malware (at the time). One traveling (idiot) guy refused to carry the MBP claiming it was a 'toy', but eventually saw that having a paying job was better than being fired and having nothing. He eventually bought a Mac for his parents, which I found surprising, but, *shrug*...

One client wanted to know if they could use Macs for their desktops. They were using a vertical app on their server, and it would have brought some potential issues, at that point, but they seriously considered it. I again demoed how to pull it all off. What probably killed it was the idea of replacing PC desk weights one at a time, over months, I guess... The Mac Mini was still kind of a joke at that time, so it wasn't a serious help for them, sadly.

Macs aren't the dead end so many thought. They play well with others.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

Absolutely Pinky! I'm in fact one of the nicer guys to our vendors, at least on our Desktop Architecture team... profanity and anger toward MS/Dell reps is pretty typical from our directors and VP.

Hah. I usually just sat at seminars and watched the truth bubbling up to the corporate shirts standing there reading the gospel word for word. The clap-back was sometimes rather spirited. I remember going to a Sonicwall seminar billed as 'An engineers day with Sonicwall', and it was anything but. People were upset. Pissed is probably the word, and pre-lunch, people started voicing their opinion of the largely sales related 'seminar'. Post-lunch, there were a few who just walked out after being told that the second half was going to be 'more engineer speak', and it wasn't. Some never returned from lunch. A couple of people did walk out, saying that even a free lunch wasn't worth sticking around.

But the Microsoft, and Intel seminars were sometimes the most contentious. People getting outlandish statements of the prowess of Intel processors up against 'weak' AMD processors, and people clapping back with their real world experiences. Once it was on server grade stuff, as I remember, and the Intel reps got it, hard...

I was actually called on for my opinion during a Microsoft seminar because I looked like I was 'reserving my opinion'. I found it interesting, and thoughtfully gave my view of things. I don't think they actually expected it, but they got it, respectfully, but whatever... I miss going to seminars. Sometimes I learned something, well usually I learned something, and often it wasn't what the people running them had in their agenda.

I did yell at a Dell support specialist once. I had called their dealer support line, and asked for part numbers for adding hotswap to a server. The (idiot) said there was no 'kit', but I could order the parts and do it myself. He rattled off a list of part numbers, and I asked, before going to sales 'Are you sure there isn't a kit for this' and he assured me, after a few minutes of hold time that there 'was not kit', and he had confirmed that with others there, and their support line.

So, the parts come in, and I start dissecting the server, and get it almost ready to go, and find out that I am missing a small board (power as I remember) and I called support to find out what was missing and how long it would take to get it. The first thing I got was 'Why didn't you buy the kit?' WHAT KIT? I called and was assured repeatedly that there was no 'kit'. 'Oh, no sir, there is indeed a 'kit', and here's the part number'. They were able to accept the parts back for full credit, and find out who told me there was no kit, but I was so pissed, I'm sure I yelled at them. What a damn joke... Third World Class Support, and to DEALERS no less...

I think my BP rose 20 points just typing that last bit...

ROCK ON!!!