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posted by janrinok on Friday July 17 2015, @10:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the hickory-dickory-dock dept.

Intel's "Tick-Tock" strategy of micro-architectural changes followed by die shrinks has officially stalled. Although Haswell and Broadwell chips have experienced delays, and Broadwell desktop chips have been overshadowed by Skylake, delays in introducing 10nm process node chips have resulted in Intel's famously optimistic roadmap missing its targets by about a whole year. 10nm Cannonlake chips were set to begin volume production in late 2016, but are now scheduled for the second half of 2017. In its place, a third generation of 14nm chips named "Kaby Lake" will be launched. It is unclear what improvements Kaby Lake will bring over Skylake.

Intel will not be relying on the long-delayed extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography to make 10nm chips. The company's revenues for the last quarter were better than expected, despite the decline of the PC market. Intel's CEO revealed the stopgap 14nm generation at the Q2 2015 earnings call:

"The lithography is continuing to get more difficult as you try and scale and the number of multi-pattern steps you have to do is increasing," [Intel CEO Brian Krzanich] said, adding, "This is the longest period of time without a lithography node change."

[...] But Krzanich seemed confident that letting up on the gas, at least for now, is the right move – with the understanding that Intel will aim to get back onto its customary two-year cycle as soon as possible. "Our customers said, 'Look, we really want you to be predictable. That's as important as getting to that leading edge'," Krzanich said during Wednesday's earnings call. "We chose to actually just go ahead and insert – since nothing else had changed – insert this third wave [with Kaby Lake]. When we go from 10-nanometer to 7-nanometer, it will be another set of parameters that we'll reevaluate this."

Intel Roadmap
Year   Old   New
2014   14nm Broadwell   14nm Broadwell
2015   14nm Skylake   14nm Skylake
2016   10nm Cannonlake   14nm Kaby Lake
2017   10nm "Tock"   10nm Cannonlake
2018   N/A   10nm "Tock"


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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Friday July 17 2015, @01:59PM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Friday July 17 2015, @01:59PM (#210426) Journal

    There's nothing wrong with this move, and complaints (around the web, not just here) that AMD isn't offering enough competition for Intel miss the mark.

    The problem is EUV from ASML [wikipedia.org]. Multiple patterning with 193 nm lithography is getting too expensive. EUV rollout has been too slow. The last Intel process node launches have been spaced closer to 2.5 years than 2 years. Going to 3 is not that bad, and it gives the company a chance to innovate on 14nm rather than reap the benefits of a planned shrink.

    We are already on year 2 of this 3 year "Tick-Tock" cycle, so it is not a long wait to 10nm. 10nm apparently doesn't depend on EUV since Intel has said it doesn't plan to use EUV for 10nm and is already building fabs for 10nm.

    If you were waiting for Skylake before upgrading, it's worth wondering whether Kaby Lake might be a bit better. The desktop launches are already much slower than mobile/tablet/laptop CPU launches and Skylake could kill Broadwell desktop chips (in the sense that nobody bothers getting Broadwell). Kaby Lake could bring improvements or be more like Devil's [digitaltrends.com] Canyon [anandtech.com], a 100-200 MHz clock boost and not much more.

    Another consideration: Skylake supports DDR3 and DDR4, 10nm Cannonlake supports just DDR4. What memory will Kaby Lake support?

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 17 2015, @03:38PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 17 2015, @03:38PM (#210472)

    I would not wait around on that chip. If I had a choice between the two obviously pick the later. But wait on it? Not so much. I think you are right about Broadwell at this point. Everyone is waiting on Skylake. We should see a decent clearout of inventory in the next few months of Broadwell equipment.