Intel Plows $4.1 billion Into Next-Gen Chip Production
Intel is getting serious about 450 nm wafers and EUV, again.
In a rather subtle announcement, Intel said that it has invested about $4.1 billion in ASML to accelerate the development of chip production on 450 nm wafers and extreme ultra-violet (EUV) lithography. The company transitioned from 200 mm to 300 mm wafers with its 130 nm chip generation, which was launched in 2001 with the Tualatin- and Coppermine-based Pentium III processors.
In about the same time frame, the company heavily discussed the transition of the production process to costly EUV, but found ways to extend conventional lithography methods, delay the massive EUV investment - about $125 million per production tool - that was originally planned to debut with 65 nm or 45 nm processors. By 2003, Intel had dropped EUV from its roadmap.
The ASML investment is the first major sign that EUV is resurfacing. The R&D investment in ASML is about $1.0 billion: Over a period of five years, $680 million will be spent on 450 mm development and about $340 million on EUV. The remaining $3.0 billion is an equity investment that grant Intel 15 percent share in ASML. The investment makes sense, as it allows Intel to drive production innovation and keep an edge in chip production technology, which is the company's most critical asset today.
Intel did not disclose additional 450 mm and EUV plans.
Doug, I think you mean 450 mm, right?
Either that or they are investing in 30 year old chip tech
Doug, I think you mean 450 mm, right?
Either that or they are investing in 30 year old chip tech
The day they can get more than a few transistors out of 450nm of wafer, let me know. I'm almost positive he meant mm.
Intel has always had better process manufaturing than anyone else, even AMD. Just not the best architecture.
Well, currently Intel can absorb losses and drown its R&D department with cash. It's a good thing for AMD that Intel's GPU team didn't have as much success as the CPU team.
true, yet Intel has finally started getting real serious about integrated graphics. AMD needs to turn on the juice, it would be nice to see Intel facing a more serious competitor from a consumer's wallet perspective
For laptops Trinity chips are amazing. Intel is grossly overselling the entire Ivy Bridge mobile line and Trinity wipes the floor with them at a price to performance analysis. The integrated graphics being as good as they are only helps future proof them as more software takes advantage of SIMD processing.
At the end though, marketing dominates.
Popular Science hasn't mentioned AMD for a while, but did give some nice words about Intel's Sandy/Ivy Bridge and the Ultrabooks.
I don't know when the last time Intel switched to a lower wavelength light source, but in 2006 Immersion Lithography was only producing "defined" lines and spaces at 22nm in the university research labs (Intel sponsored). I imagine they worked out a way to push it to 14nm since then, but I don't think another innovation as cheap and as simple as a drop of water is going to get them past 14nm.
If AMD could get some wins like Winzip 16.5 where they leverage OpenCL to speed up "everyday" tasks like unzipping and zipping files, they'd really take Intel to task. Other than video and maybe audio editing though I don't think it'd matter for other tasks.
Maybe create a "Youtube upload accelerator" that uses OpenCL and AMD hardware to shrink files to make them take less data to send. Given mobile data caps it'd be huge.
I already posted this in a thread that it was more relevant in, but since every time Intel or AMD is talked about it starts an AMD vs Intel argument I'll post it here too.
AMD has some time left. They are getting decent attention in the server market, and their desktop/mobile consumer market share hasn't got much smaller (though still not good) over the last few years.
Will they be able to compete for the CPU crown again? Doubtful. They may even lose the IGP crown in 3 years (Intel's SkyLake) or less. But, because they are more affordable than Intel and because their IGP can boost the performance of AMD discrete graphics, both Microsoft and Sony are looking at AMD for APU's and graphics cards in the next-gen gaming consoles. Dominating the gaming console market would be a jab at both Intel and Nvidia. It would reestablish AMD's legitimacy in the CPU/APU market, which would be followed by better press coverage. The future of AMD really hinges on getting contracts for the next-gen gaming consoles.
Not to mention no major nations' governments will allow Intel monopoly of the traditional CPU market.