Intel’s Gelsinger Predicts Intel Inside Everything. ~ July 3, 2008

[hist78]

Thanks to the wonderful Internet, now we can go back 10 or 20 years easily to learn what people were thinking back then.

Intel's Gelsinger Predicts Intel Inside Everything - ExtremeTech

A top Intel executive said he sees the Intel architecture permeating virtually every segment of computing, as the company's microprocessors expand into more and more cores.

www.extremetech.com

 

[blueone]

Pathetic.

 

[hist78]

Pathetic.

2021 global PC sales was 340 million units. It's a great year for PC sales after several years of decline.

Also in 2021, there were more than 29 billion ARM-based chips shipped worldwide, 7.8 billion units in Q4 alone. From the expensive iPhones, Galaxy Phones, M1 Macs to the cheap IoT devices, it's everywhere.

ARM is based on the RISC architecture and it definitely proved that Intel's x86 CISC is not the only solution for computing.

 

[jms_embedded]

Intel’s challenge now is “to take compatibility into the milliwatt range,” Gelsinger said. The answer, of course, is Intel’s Atom processor.

Um --- no thank you.

 

[blueone]

ARM is based on the RISC architecture and it definitely proved that Intel's x86 CISC is not the only solution for computing.

No question. The Neoverse cores are easily capable enough for datacenter use.

 

[Lorien]

1.) Moore’s Law continues, unsurprisingly.

hahaha

Intel is “on the way to 22[-nm],” Gelsinger said. “We have a good view of what 14[-nm] and [15-nm] will look like, and a good idea of how we’ll break through 10[-nm]. Beyond that, we’re not sure.”

 hahahahahahaha (ok, to be fair this was almost prescient)

2.) The number of cores will continue to increase, as part of a “terascale” era of computing.

So it did, but because of AMD ironically.

3.) Compatibility rules. [...] “In 2020, you’ll have a petaflop on a chip – well, maybe not there, but in that range – at least 100 teraflops on a chip. And you’ll still be able to boot DOS"

More like Windows 11 won't even install on my 5 year old laptop. DX11 runs like crap on Intel Arc and DX9 is deprecated. Everything will be Linux in 5 years and everything not Linux will be emulated.

4.) Likewise, the Intel Architecture will be everywhere. With Intel’s X86 legacy, the challenge has always been to migrate the architecture into the mobile space, where the smaller die size and lower power consumption of RISC chips has provided an advantage. But Gelsinger argued that the 2 billion or so ARM chips in the marketplace should really be seen as a hodgepodge of different versions[...]

hahahahahahaha

 

[blueone]

1.) Moore’s Law continues, unsurprisingly.

hahaha

Intel is “on the way to 22[-nm],” Gelsinger said. “We have a good view of what 14[-nm] and [15-nm] will look like, and a good idea of how we’ll break through 10[-nm]. Beyond that, we’re not sure.”

 hahahahahahaha (ok, to be fair this was almost prescient)

2.) The number of cores will continue to increase, as part of a “terascale” era of computing.

So it did, but because of AMD ironically.

3.) Compatibility rules. [...] “In 2020, you’ll have a petaflop on a chip – well, maybe not there, but in that range – at least 100 teraflops on a chip. And you’ll still be able to boot DOS"

More like Windows 11 won't even install on my 5 year old laptop. DX11 runs like crap on Intel Arc and DX9 is deprecated. Everything will be Linux in 5 years and everything not Linux will be emulated.

In fairness, he didn't mention Windows, he said DOS.

I would argue that if one is running a hypervisor, your prediction about Linux and Windows being "emulated", which technically means running Windows as a virtual machine, is already here.

4.) Likewise, the Intel Architecture will be everywhere. With Intel’s X86 legacy, the challenge has always been to migrate the architecture into the mobile space, where the smaller die size and lower power consumption of RISC chips has provided an advantage. But Gelsinger argued that the 2 billion or so ARM chips in the marketplace should really be seen as a hodgepodge of different versions[...]

hahahahahahaha

On this one you should have capitalized the hahas.

 

[hist78]

I just recognized that in 2021 x86 CISC based processors maintained about 1.16% of the overall chips market (if we only include the ARM and x86 PCs sales in the calculation, see above post #3).

AMD had about 25% of the x86 market in 2021. That means Intel's market share was less than 1% of the overall chips market in 2021.

How can Intel compete with such disadvantage in the scale of the economy?

 

[jms_embedded]

I just recognized that in 2021 x86 CISC based processors maintained about 1.16% of the overall chips market (if we only include the ARM and x86 PCs sales in the calculation, see above post #3).

AMD had about 25% of the x86 market in 2021. That means Intel's market share was less than 1% of the overall chips market in 2021.

How can Intel compete with such disadvantage in the scale of the economy?

That's a bit disingenuous, like saying that insects have a bigger impact on the earth's future than human beings do, because they have more biomass than we do. (And who knows, maybe they do have a bigger impact.) Or that the human brain comprises only 2.5% of body weight, on average.

The MPU and MCU universes are just... different.

I suspect that x86 will continue to diminish in dominance, but it's still going to be a key platform for a while.

Now the big question: will the non-Apple desktop/laptop market stay with x86 or will we see ARM take a big chunk out of that market? (Lenovo apparently is already selling Windows on Qualcomm ARM laptops)

 

[hist78]

That's a bit disingenuous, like saying that insects have a bigger impact on the earth's future than human beings do, because they have more biomass than we do. (And who knows, maybe they do have a bigger impact.) Or that the human brain comprises only 2.5% of body weight, on average.

The MPU and MCU universes are just... different.

I suspect that x86 will continue to diminish in dominance, but it's still going to be a key platform for a while.

Now the big question: will the non-Apple desktop/laptop market stay with x86 or will we see ARM take a big chunk out of that market? (Lenovo apparently is already selling Windows on Qualcomm ARM laptops)

“That's a bit disingenuous, like saying that insects have a bigger impact on the earth's future than human beings do, because they have more biomass than we do. (And who knows, maybe they do have a bigger impact.) Or that the human brain comprises only 2.5% of body weight, on average.“

Please see my above comments in #3. My intention was to point out from those expensive smartphones to cheap IoT devices, RISC based products are everywhere. The benefit of the scale of the economy, such as IPs, manufacturing, and talents, is enormous in the RISC ecosystem.

Using the EDA software as an example. I believe the top three vendors, Synopsys, Cadence, and Siemens have many more customers from RISC side than x86 side.

 

[count]

I don’t believe Intel can compete with the scale of the fabless ecosystem and have been saying so for years.

Just as Intel used it’s scale in PCs when it took over the server market in the 90s (early Intel server chips were based heavily on PC chips), the same thing is playing out against the company now.

I don’t characterize this as a RISC/CISC thing because that’s not a meaningful distinction today. The battle is between the fabless and IDM business models.

 

[jms_embedded]

Please see my above comments in #3. My intention was to point out from those expensive smartphones to cheap IoT devices, RISC based products are everywhere. The benefit of the scale of the economy, such as IPs, manufacturing, and talents, is enormous in the RISC ecosystem.

Using the EDA software as an example. I believe the top three vendors, Synopsys, Cadence, and Siemens have many more customers from RISC side than x86 side.

Oh, I agree. ARM definitely has an advantage of scale.

But high-end MPUs have their own competitive advantages with x86, at least at the moment.

 

[blueone]

I just recognized that in 2021 x86 CISC based processors maintained about 1.16% of the overall chips market (if we only include the ARM and x86 PCs sales in the calculation, see above post #3).

AMD had about 25% of the x86 market in 2021. That means Intel's market share was less than 1% of the overall chips market in 2021.

How can Intel compete with such disadvantage in the scale of the economy?

You're equating apples with pineapples. Most of ARM's revenue and volume is from embedded IP in SoCs. How much of the discrete CPU market is x86 versus ARM? I don't know the answer, but I'm sure the ratio the very lopsided in favor of x86.

ARM's total revenue for 2021 was $2.7B. Intel's was $79B. That is how Intel competes, however inefficiently.

 

[jms_embedded]

ARM's total revenue for 2021 was $2.7B. Intel's was $79B. That is how Intel competes, however inefficiently.

ARM sells IP, Intel sells chips.

 

[blueone]

ARM sells IP, Intel sells chips.

I know, and you're missing the point. In post #8 the argument was made that Arm has higher implemented core volumes than Intel, so how can Intel compete? And my answer is Intel's revenue is over 30 times as large as Arm's, so it can out-invest Arm in practically everything, especially software enabling.

 

[hist78]

ARM sells IP, Intel sells chips.

You're equating apples with pineapples. Most of ARM's revenue and volume is from embedded IP in SoCs. How much of the discrete CPU market is x86 versus ARM? I don't know the answer, but I'm sure the ratio the very lopsided in favor of x86.

ARM's total revenue for 2021 was $2.7B. Intel's was $79B. That is how Intel competes, however inefficiently.

Let's get into the number to find out more:

Among the 29 billion ARM-based chips shipped worldwide in 2021, 1.43 billion units were used in smartphones, 168.8 million units were in tablets, and 37 million units were for Chromebooks. These three categories together reached about 1.64 billion units without counting other ARM based processors such as those for Apple M1 notebooks, AI/ML, servers, and autonomous driving.

1.64 billion units of ARM based APU/CPU vs 340 million units of PCs (assume 1 CPU per PC) in 2021! Some serious consequences will come to play due to this disparity.

 

[blueone]

Let's get into the number to find out more:

Among the 29 billion ARM-based chips shipped worldwide in 2021, 1.43 billion units were used in smartphones, 168.8 million units were in tablets, and 37 million units were for Chromebooks. These three categories together reached about 1.64 billion units without counting other ARM based processors such as those for Apple M1 notebooks, AI/ML, servers, and autonomous driving.

1.64 billion units of ARM based APU/CPU vs 340 million units of PCs (assume 1 CPU per PC) in 2021! Some serious consequences will come to play due to this disparity.


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Nice data. And without a doubt, Arm is eating (has eaten) the compute core world. It will be interesting to see how RISC-V impacts Arm's embedded revenue in future years. Nonetheless, what Arm can invest in IP development is still small compared to what Intel and AMD invest in CPU design.

 

[count]

Nice data. And without a doubt, Arm is eating (has eaten) the compute core world. It will be interesting to see how RISC-V impacts Arm's embedded revenue in future years. Nonetheless, what Arm can invest in IP development is still small compared to what Intel and AMD invest in CPU design.

RISC-V will take a long time for it's ecosystem to catch up with ARM, if it happens at all.

Intel is not just competing with ARM, they are competing with Apple, Qualcomm, Broadcomm, Amazon, Microsoft, NVidia, and many other companies that are building CPU design using ARM IP. Then they are competing with TSMC on manufacturing process. Core IP is a small faction of CPU design cost.

The revenue of the ecosystem that Intel is trying to compete with is in the hundreds of billions, and all of these companies are focused on winning in their own domain, while Intel is spread thin trying to win in every domain.

 

[Xebec]

I just recognized that in 2021 x86 CISC based processors maintained about 1.16% of the overall chips market (if we only include the ARM and x86 PCs sales in the calculation, see above post #3).

AMD had about 25% of the x86 market in 2021. That means Intel's market share was less than 1% of the overall chips market in 2021.

How can Intel compete with such disadvantage in the scale of the economy?

What’s the metric look like if we use mm2 or $ in revenue total? X86 should be a lot higher in terms of revenue..

 

[blueone]

Intel is not just competing with ARM, they are competing with Apple, Qualcomm, Broadcomm, Amazon, Microsoft, NVidia, and many other companies that are building CPU design using ARM IP. Then they are competing with TSMC on manufacturing process. Core IP is a small faction of CPU design cost.

The revenue of the ecosystem that Intel is trying to compete with is in the hundreds of billions, and all of these companies are focused on winning in their own domain, while Intel is spread thin trying to win in every domain.

This is not completely accurate. For one thing, Intel is not competing with Arm at all; Intel is competing with companies that license Arm IP. Secondly, Intel does not compete with Apple, Amazon, or Microsoft. Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft do not sell chips; they use them for their own internal use. (And Microsoft is not designing chips at any scale yet I'm aware of.) Intel mostly sells chips (they also sell boards and NUCs, but those a small fraction of total revenue). Intel and Qualcomm have very little (if any?) overlap in their markets. Intel does compete with Broadcom and Nvidia, but the companies who sell discrete CPUs based on Arm IP are currently a small fraction of the total market. Intel largely competes with AMD and Nvidia.

I don't know what fraction of CPU design cost Arm IP is, because each chip design company negotiates a different license fee with Arm.