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posted by martyb on Saturday July 25 2020, @03:07AM   Printer-friendly
from the how-the-mighty-has-fallen-behind dept.

Intel's 7nm is Broken, Company Announces Delay Until 2022, 2023 (archive)

Intel announced today in its Q2 2020 earnings release that it has now delayed the rollout of its 7nm CPUs by six months relative to its previously-planned release date, undoubtedly resulting in wide-ranging delays to the company's roadmaps. Intel's press release also says that yields for its 7nm process are now twelve months behind the company's internal targets, meaning the company isn't currently on track to produce its 7nm process in an economically viable way. The company now says its 7nm CPUs will not debut on the market until late 2022 or early 2023.

[...] On the earnings call, Intel CEO Bob Swan said the company had identified a "defect mode" in its 7nm process that caused yield degradation issues. As a result, Intel has invested in "contingency plans," which Swan later defined as including using third-party foundries. The company will also use external third-party foundries for its forthcoming 7nm Ponte Vecchio GPUs, the company's first graphics chips. Ponte Vecchio comes as a chiplet-based design, and Swan clarified that production for some of the chiplets (tiles) will be outsourced to third parties. Swan noted the GPUs will come in late 2021 or early 2022, portending a delay beyond the original schedule for a 2021 launch in the exascale Aurora supercomputer.

[...] Intel's first 10nm desktop CPUs, Alder Lake, will arrive in the second half of 2021.

See also: Intel Reports Q2 2020 Earnings: Data Center Sales Fuel Another Record Quarter
Intel 7nm Delayed By 6 Months; Company to Take "Pragmatic" Approach in Using Third-Party Fabs
Intel Roadmap Update: Alder Lake In H2'21, Ice Lake-SP Late This Year


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2020, @03:32PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2020, @03:32PM (#1026171)

    According to the earnings report an issue was identified which is affecting the yield. Resolving this will take 6 months. If we believe this, the schedule shouldn't be an unending delay like the 10nm node.

    Perhaps more interesting is the 3rd party foundries comment. If they are willing to release their next gen products to TSMC (or Samsung I suppose) they can get some next gen performance on the bleeding edge chips with the roadmap to move those designs back home in the future. But it isn't clear this is their strategy. They could be referring to their previously announced plans to send 14nm chips to third party sites. All that is stated is that Intel will be more aggressive on sending production to 3rd party fabs. This could be as simple as providing CPU designs to the sites which already are making non-CPU designs at the 14nm design.

    https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-increasing-use-of-third-party-fabs-for-non-cpu-production-14nm-chip-shortage [tomshardware.com]