Comments on: The Irony Of AWS Being Intel’s Latest Savior

By: Timothy Prickett Morgan

Timothy Prickett Morgan — Mon, 23 Sep 2024 12:44:25 +0000

In reply to Matt. It is a perplexing question, isn't it? Same reason servers are cheaper to build in Shenzen than in Guadalaraja, which is cheaper than Fremont. It might have something to do with the ecosystem of engineering and parts expertise that builds up in places mentioned above. Perhaps there are more experts in foundries in Taiwan than there are experts in the United States? Whatever expertise IBM and AMD had and sold to GlobalFoundries is now way outdated. When all of the engineers and parts suppliers are local, the feedback loops are shorter and the expertise is leveraged quicker to solve problems. I think it has to be more than just cheaper labor. It has to also be better labor. Getting a foundry up to yield on a process quicker means losing less money on it. The cost is idleness, and as Intel's results show, idleness can cost billions of dollars a quarter.

By: JayN

JayN — Sun, 22 Sep 2024 15:10:46 +0000

“if it is going to turn itself around and be competitive with AMD ”
Last time I looked, Intel still has 75% of x86 market.
They are a node ahead with Lunar Lake using TSM N3.
They are a node ahead with Granite Rapids and Sierra Forest using Intel-3.
They continue to lead with introduction of Wifi7, and TB5 coming on Arrow Lake.
They continue to lead with AMX tiled matrix acceleration on Granite Rapids.
The integrated GPU and NPU on Lunar Lake push its performance to 120 TOPS for AI processing.

By: Matt

Matt — Sat, 21 Sep 2024 20:52:00 +0000

Why would it be costlier to build chips in the US if the factory is FULLY automated. The advantage that Asia has is the lower labour cost right?

By: EC

EC — Wed, 18 Sep 2024 15:53:46 +0000

The AWS nod was important for Pat’s relationship with FTC chair Gina Raimando. Federal funds are at stake here, so the worst reflection on her would be the IFS investment turns into another Solyndra. Pat had some good news to digest before the re-org stuff.

Beyond that its bold for AWS to commit at this point to an build a product in an area Intel has been struggling with for years, so good for them. I’m sure that brought some relief to Gina. But in order to become a supplier in good standing with other key fabless guys (AMD, Nvidia for example) Intel is going to need to sever the IFS business completely, which isn’t in the cards for now.

By: Slim Albert

Slim Albert — Wed, 18 Sep 2024 09:38:29 +0000

It sure takes time, investment, and trust, to get a leading edge fab up and running successfully. This expanding strategic collaboration between AWS and Intel should help ensure that IFS gets there profitably, and sooner rather than later, here for AI fabric chips and custom Xeons. I can only hope that others join the fray as well, especially for cloud-oriented ARM chips, TPUs, GPUs, and the likes. Those are supply-constrained and face packaging bottlenecks in the global supply chain (eg. CoWoS), that should give ample room and opportunities for IFS to shine IMHO.

By: Carl Schumacher

Carl Schumacher — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 19:48:33 +0000

I wonder if by their visceral (or not) reaction upon flashing “++++” onto a screen, can one tell if an employee has been with Intel for a significant amount of time?