Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Intel Delays 7-Nanometer Chips Until Late 2022 or Early 2023
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I'm only aware of one product => Surface Pro X, which is expensive. And Apple has said they're not going to support Bootcamp on Apple Silicon Macs so the only way this happens if MS and Apple partner to support Windows on Arm via virtualization.
[automerge]1595559303[/automerge]
Apple has been planning this move for years. They were going to transition Macs to their own custom SoC regardless of how well Intel was or wasn't doing.
Weren’t they already using third party fabs for chipsets at a year or two ago so they could crank out Xeons?
[automerge]1595559671[/automerge]
And you can bet a certain supply chain genius was all for it 🙂Steve Jobs was the weapon behind this. It was under his leadership that Apple acquired PA Semi and later on Intrinsity to build the semiconductor team.
Apple Is Quietly Designing and Building Its Own Silicon Empire - ExtremeTech
Apple is quietly building a semiconductor empire for itself that could, in the long-term, challenge Qualcomm and Intel on modems, and even Intel on CPUs. That last bit won't happen anytime soon, but it's not impossible.www.extremetech.com
I’m sure we’ll hear someday how it actually went down.
Last edited:
agree 100% with this ... some of the equipment is shared between 10 and 7 nm process, they have not figured out the root cause - in too many years
Surface Pro X, Lenovo Yoga/Flex 5G, Samsung Galaxybook S and 2, Asus NovaGo, HP Envy x2, Lenovo Miix 630/Yoga C630, and some domestic Chinese models (Weibu)
Most of these are top of the low-end, $750 class.
They make a decent amount of ARM based Chromebooks, it's not hard to imagine vendors putting Windows on them with a firmware change.
Last edited:
If they don't start outsourcing their mainline CPUs, that product line is going to continue to struggle to compete. That's what "contingency plan" means to me-- it means that if they can't get their fabs online, they need to print their money using someone else's.
If you were designing an architecture today, you wouldn't design
CPUs are something like 90% of their business.
"Intel® Optane™ memory is smart technology that personalizes and accelerates your computing experience on Intel® Core™-based PCs". Again, x86 support chips.
They largely abandoned the 5G modem business, and Huawei is being held back as a basestation competitor because of political issues. Storage is still a small part of their business and it's at least as dependent on process technology as their CPUs, if not more so.
I agree that their process is holding them back-- that's my point. What was their strength is now faltering.
The "Strategy" section of their 2019 annual report says this:
Our Strategy: Moore’s Law, a law of economics predicted by Intel’s co-founder Gordon Moore more than 50 years ago, continues to be a strategic priority and differentiator. We make significant investments and innovations in our silicon manufacturing technologies and platforms.
They seem to think process is the key.
Not now, but if TSMC stumbles there will be someone there to pick up the business and all it takes for Apple is to target the new process-- they don't need to scale the process or build the fab. If you watch what Apple does with iPhone, they work to diversify their supply chain by building up key suppliers. A minor chip here, a secondary supplier there, over time giving these other companies the cash and opportunity to build up their capabilities.
Last edited:
Intel should just say to hell with it and buy ARM since they are for sale.
According to info coming out of the conference call, Intel is outsourcing manufacturing of their Xe discrete GPU line, Ponte Vecchio, not CPUs.
[automerge]1595560776[/automerge]
They don't diversity their SoC manufacturers. There is only one, and that is TSMC. And if TSCM does falter, there isn't anyone else at the moment that can pick up the slack. TSMC is significantly ahead from a technology and capacity standpoint, it's not even funny.
While they were hard at work. I was whining that Apple is doing nothing for the Mac.... Sorry Apple
? IA-64 is the Itanium architecture.
I think you are confusing ISA with CPU architecture. Today's Intel CPUs have a very different architecture than x86 CPUs from 20 years ago. And the x86-64 ISA has actually been cleaned up significantly. There's nothing wrong with it.
In any case, other than AMD's recent offerings there is no general purpose CPU architecture out there that can compete with modern Intel CPUs in terms of performance, and that is why it is "top notch". Apple may close the gap with their ARM CPUs, but it remains to be seen how well their CPUs really scale.
Huh? Itanium was not backwards compatible (and is proof that a new architecture isn't necessarily better than the "legacy").
It's not a "support chip". They keep it exclusive to their own CPUs as a business strategy. And the storage group does more than just Optanium.
The modem business has nothing to do with basestations. Huawei is a major Intel customer, and Intel supplies market leading TEMs like Ericsson and Nokia. They are on track to becoming the market leader in this space, displacing companies like Broadcom.
There is currently no foundry that would have the capabilities and scale to do that.
Just taking the credit...That is so funny. Without Srouji and his team, Apple would not be moving away from Intel today.
Bye, bye Intel. Thanks for many good years but time to move on. My next MBP will be an Apple Silicon for damn sure. Can't wait.
After 10 nm is what, 5 years late and still is only being used for a portion of the product line. Did anyone actually believe they would deliver 7 nm on time. My guess is limited product rollout on 7 nm in 2027.
He must have a rogue process chewing up CPU. My MBP16 doesn't do this...
It's pretty easy to see what process is consuming CPU cycles and determine whether it can be safely killed. If it persists, you need to identify the application and do some research on whether the behaviour is normal.
One day, we will look back and be amazed that there was even a debate about whether Apple made the right move transitioning to apple silicon.
I know nothing intelligent about this topic but it's fun to read and attempt to learn what the future looks like. I just want to say I commend you for penning this response to six (6!) of the previous user's comments.
I’m not ruling Intel permanently out.
[automerge]1595567190[/automerge]
if this was the reason Apple was switching to Arm, Apple would be switching to AMD.
[automerge]1595567190[/automerge]
if this was the reason Apple was switching to Arm, Apple would be switching to AMD.
Last edited:
So, based on the article: Apple will start releasing ARM computers by the end of 2020, and assuming they switch all devices over to ARM (which takes them around 2 years), Apple will have each and every Mac on A14 (or better) on a 5nm process (or better then). Before Intel has even ONE chip on their 7nm process. Just wow.
I remember back is the day when apple transitioned to risc based PowerPC. It was going to steal intel's lunch. And for a while it did. And then intel lifted its game and PowerPC could not match the pentium 4in power consumption.
So, once intel does make 7nm, who knows where intel will be.
of course, bringing the SOC in house that rather than be dependent on Motorola and IBM for PowerPC might mean Apple won’t be standing around either. Interesting times.