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Intel expects to lose some server/data center market share to AMD's Epyc line of chips:
The pitched battle between Intel and AMD has spread to the data center, and while Intel has been forthcoming that it expects to lose some market share in the coming months to AMD, Brian Krzanich's recent comments to Instinet analyst Roman Shah give us some insight into the surprising scope of AMD's threat. Shah recently sat down with Intel CEO Brian Krzanich and Barron's reported on his findings:
Shah relates that Krzanich "was very matter-of-fact in saying that Intel would lose server share to AMD in the second half of the year," which is not news, but he thought it significant that "Mr. Krzanich did not draw a firm line in the sand as it relates to AMD's potential gains in servers; he only indicated that it was Intel's job to not let AMD capture 15-20% market share." (emphasis added).
Furthermore, Intel's problems with the "10nm" node could allow AMD to pick up market share with "7nm" (although it may be similar in performance to Intel's "10nm"):
Nomura Instinet is less bullish on further stock gains for Intel after talking to the chipmaker's CEO, Brian Krzanich. [...] The analyst said Intel's problems in moving to its next-generation chip manufacturing technology may be a factor in its potential market share losses. The chipmaker revealed on its April 26 earnings conference call that it delayed volume production under its 10-nanometer chip manufacturing process to next year. Conversely, AMD said on its call that it plans to start next-generation 7-nanometer chip production in late 2018.
[...] "We see Mr. Krzanich's posture here reflecting the company's inability thus far to sufficiently yield 10nm for volume production while AMD's partner TSMC is currently making good progress on 7nm; thus, setting Intel up for stiff competition again in 2019," the analyst said.
Here are a couple of post-mortem articles on Intel's misleading 28-core CPU demo and more:
Rather than 28 cores, Intel may introduce 20 and 22 core CPUs to compete with AMD's Threadripper 2, along with 8-core Coffee Lake refresh CPUs to compete with Ryzen.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by schad on Friday June 15 2018, @01:31PM (2 children)
It's an open secret that Intel wants AMD to remain viable. I've worked at Intel. They view AMD as their hedge against trust-busting. They aren't Microsoft; they don't want to own 100% of the market. They are completely happy owning a highly-profitable 80% with AMD taking up the rest. This is why BK is so matter-of-fact about ceding market share to AMD. He's not trying to stop it. On some level, he may actually be relieved.
It's like a dad "racing" with his 10-year old son. The dad wants to win, because he's sort of an asshole, so he's running hard. But he doesn't want his son to get so discouraged that he just gives up, either. So if the dad gets too far ahead, he suddenly "gets a cramp" and stops, letting his son pass him. Then the dad starts running again just in time to win by a foot or two. That's what Intel vs. AMD looks like.
And, as you sort of imply, Intel would much rather be competing with AMD than with ARM. Intel knows how to beat AMD. They've done it plenty of times before. But they haven't managed to beat ARM yet, and they've tried.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 15 2018, @03:41PM (1 child)
So you are saying intel could release faster, higher core count, cheaper, lower power consumption cpus whenever they want but they don't want to right now?
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Friday June 15 2018, @09:03PM
Yes, they could. Pick any two ;)
But a bit more serious - yes, they actually can push truly mindboggling stuff out within three to six months at any given time, they scrap more tech per year than some competitors develop during their entire existance.
The reason why they don't do it - in part to keep profit margins, in part to keep a good grip on the market (lots of the scrapped stuff isn't compatible with their legacy stuff), and in part due to quality issues (making a prototype line is a heck of a lot easier than to make a production line).
A very visible example of the "almost there but scrapped" is the Larrabee.
Quite frankly this holds true for most advanced tech areas where the major leaders invest heavily in R&D - if they just decide to skip of safety&quality they could probably advance their field at a rate that would seem the wartime development of tech to seem sluggish.