Intel: 10nm Is Not Dead (It's Getting Better)
Industry analyst and SemiAccurate founder Charlie Demerjian published an article today claiming that Intel has abandoned its 10nm process. The report comes after Intel has repeatedly delayed the process node for four years. Demerjian claimed for years that Intel's 10nm process would face delays, a prophecy that has proven true. And in recent times he has claimed that Intel has relaxed the design rules for its 10nm process, thus making it more akin to a 12nm node, to deal with delays and yield issues.
Now, Demerjian claims that Intel has "killed off" its 10nm process, which the company quickly responded to via its @IntelNews twitter account:
Media reports published today that Intel is ending work on the 10nm process are untrue. We are making good progress on 10nm. Yields are improving consistent with the timeline we shared during our last earnings report.
Intel's unusually quick response is telling. The company certainly doesn't need any lingering questions surrounding its progress on its 10nm node, particularly as it nears its earnings call later this week. As an official dispatch from an Intel twitter account, the statement does hold all of the legal weight of any official Intel statement, and misleading statements to investors is a punishable offense.
In other words, Intel is throwing its weight behind the assertions it made in its most recent earnings call that systems with 10nm processors will come to market in the second half of 2019. There has been speculation that Intel could skip its 10nm process in favor of moving directly to its nascent 7nm node. But there is nothing to substantiate those rumors.
Demerjian has been right in the past, correctly claiming that Intel's 10nm process was facing delays while the company claimed otherwise, which does give some weight to his claims. Most of Demerjian's article is behind a paywall, so it's hard to analyze the full rationale behind Demerjian's statements. No analyst is infallible, so only time will tell if Demerjian's claims are accurate, or if Intel is indeed making strides toward wide-scale 10nm availability.
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Paul Alcorn is the Editor-in-Chief for Tom's Hardware US. He also writes news and reviews on CPUs, storage, and enterprise hardware.
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hannibal Intel has so much money that next 10nm may be completely new version. And this time they did it right. If it is so interesting to see what changes they did to make their 10nm to work this time. Ofcourse they could be lying, but as it has been said in the article. It would have dire consequences...Reply
All in all they are late, but considering the competitive situation it is good that the playing field has leveled somewhat! -
jimmysmitty The biggest problem with Charlie is that he claims this without providing anything tangible. He has in the past predicted doom and gloom for nVidia and yet nvidia is doing very well and is the top of the GPU market currently. He did the same for intel many years ago.Reply
He claims to have "trusted moles" but again provides no evidence other than what he is being told yet no one else is being told it. We only know Intels 10nm is delayed because they state it. No other site reports anything like this, only Charlie does.
Honestly he is near impossible to trust. In his past he has shown bias and I think he is over playing his hand. -
dudmont Reply21423002 said:The biggest problem with Charlie is that he claims this without providing anything tangible. He has in the past predicted doom and gloom for nVidia and yet nvidia is doing very well and is the top of the GPU market currently. He did the same for intel many years ago.
He claims to have "trusted moles" but again provides no evidence other than what he is being told yet no one else is being told it. We only know Intels 10nm is delayed because they state it. No other site reports anything like this, only Charlie does.
Honestly he is near impossible to trust. In his past he has shown bias and I think he is over playing his hand.
I'm not familiar with his writings, is he a "red" team guy? When it comes to bias/hypocrisy, I always run the simple, but effective mind test called, "shoe on the other foot"(switch the teams in the discussion and see if you'd still be where you are, if not, then you're probably being biased). It's especially helpful in this highly charged political climate, but it works for tech discussions too. -
jimmysmitty Reply21423015 said:21423002 said:The biggest problem with Charlie is that he claims this without providing anything tangible. He has in the past predicted doom and gloom for nVidia and yet nvidia is doing very well and is the top of the GPU market currently. He did the same for intel many years ago.
He claims to have "trusted moles" but again provides no evidence other than what he is being told yet no one else is being told it. We only know Intels 10nm is delayed because they state it. No other site reports anything like this, only Charlie does.
Honestly he is near impossible to trust. In his past he has shown bias and I think he is over playing his hand.
I'm not familiar with his writings, is he a "red" team guy? When it comes to bias/hypocrisy, I always run the simple, but effective mind test called, "shoe on the other foot"(switch the teams in the discussion and see if you'd still be where you are, if not, then you're probably being biased). It's especially helpful in this highly charged political climate, but it works for tech discussions too.
He used to write for the Inquirer and I would say he has a slight red team bias.
Typically I ignore his rantings but they have picked up favor with people due to him "predicting" Intel 10nm delays. My issue is that he never provides any solid evidence of his claims. If he did I would be more than happy to accept more of his "insight" but otherwise he is s just talking to talk.
He might want to be careful though as something like this could cause stockholder backlash for Intel and in turn they could sue him for libel if it is not true information. -
racksmith101 From what has come up in conversation with some people I know in the chip design and fabrication industry, Intel's current design doesn't scale down to 10nm very well the yield rate was incredibly low.Reply -
redgarl It was hard to believe at first, but the response from Intel is justified. It was something that could altered their stock heavily.Reply -
ET3D Reply21423015 said:I'm not familiar with his writings, is he a "red" team guy?
I'm not sure about that, but he's definitely anti-NVIDIA and anti-Intel. He always tends to predict doom and gloom for them, which sometimes comes true, as would naturally happen when one keeps predicting something. -
stratoz99 Is this a 10nm physicly or might it be under 10nm if the process allows it ? dont feel right to "develope" an old process in my mind and Intel never struck me as unstrategic ?Reply