Intel splitting manufacturing group into three parts after repeated 10nm delays

AppleInsider

Intel is preparing to make changes to how manufacturing will be managed after the arm's leader retires in November, with claims the group will be spit into three segments with separate leaders, as the company attempts to catch up with its repeatedly delayed product launches.

The current head of Intel's Technology and Manufacturing Group Sohail Ahmed will be leaving the company to retire next month, the chip producer advised to employees on Monday. Ahmed will be departing after being the chief of the group since 2016.

Rather than continue as one group, it will instead be split into three, according to The Oregonian, with separate segments for technology, manufacturing and operations, and the supply chain.

Head of Intel Labs Mike Mayberry will lead technology development, with Rich Uhlig running Intel Labs on an interim basis. Manufacturing and operations will be led by Ann Kelleher, who had previously helped run the original group alongside Ahmed, while the supply chain will be controlled by Randhir Thakur.

The three heads of each section will be under the management of Venkata "Murthy" Renduchintala. Previously at Qualcomm until 2015 when he moved to Intel, he is currently the chief engineering officer and also the president of a number of Intel's businesses.

The management shakeup occurs while Intel is slowly making the transition to a 10-nanometer process from a 14-nanometer version, one that has been frequently delayed and has only started to reach consumers and industry customers, albeit with relatively few options. The 10-nanometer chips were originally expected to arrive in 2016, but were repeatedly put off over yield issues.

An open letter from the interim CEO Bob Swan issued in September insists that mass production of 10-nanometer processors is still on the cards, for sometime in 2019. In the meantime, it will be increasing its investment of 14-nanometer manufacturing, in order to capitalize on an increased need for high performance processors.

One September report claimed chip production rival TSMC was contracted by Intel to produce some of its 14-nanometer chips, including the H310 and other 300-series chipsets. It was alleged Intel was short of meeting demand for 14-nanometer chips by "as much as 50 percent," with outsourcing being one of a number of possible solutions to the problem.

Switching to smaller manufacturing processes are usually problematic and costly maneuvers for chip firms. While Intel is struggling to get to 10-nanometer, TSMC is already using its 7-nanometer process to manufacture Apple's A12 Bionic chip.

Under the name "Cannon Lake," 10-nanometer processors offer a variety of performance and cooling benefits, but for Apple, it represents a potential memory expansion. July's 15-inch MacBook Pro refresh did introduce a 32GB RAM option, but only through Apple modifying the design from using the limited LPDDR3 memory to more power-dependent DDR4 memory. Cannon Lake-generation processors will include LPDDR4 support by default, and could offer power savings over the current high-RAM solution.

So far, Intel has released only one processor in the Cannon Lake range, the Core i3-812U. The dual-core chip has a base clock speed of 2.2GHz, rising to 3.2GHz when boosted, and offers a notebook-friendly 15-Watt thermal design point.

Corey Vixie

More and more, the articles around Intel's 10nm delays are reminding me the speculation leading up to "the G5 PowerBook". I doubt Apple is ready to sour the relationship with Intel before they've got a replacement ready to go, but I wonder if they might diversify with AMD in the near future. AMD's willingness to entertain semi-custom designs and their new series of Zen-based APUs would be good fits for the new Mac Pro and Mac mini, respectively, but Intel would undoubtedly view that... poorly.

rob53

Why would Qualcomm say Apple gave secrets to Intel when all intel had to do was talk to the old Qualcomm person they hired in 2015?

DuhSesame

AppleInsider said:
... Core i3-812U. The dual-core chip has a base clock speed of 2.2GHz, rising to 3.2GHz when boosted, and offers a notebook-friendly 15-Watt thermal design point.

Made a typo.

JWSC

rob53 said:

Why would Qualcomm say Apple gave secrets to Intel when all intel had to do was talk to the old Qualcomm person they hired in 2015?

As conditions of employment, many employers ask new hires to sign documents related to proprietary data, such as non-disclosure agreements (NDAs).  Even if you never signed an NDA you could still be sued for breach of trust.  Some companies handle this differently by requiring departing employees to not work for a direct competitor for several years, on the threat that the company could sue them.  The threat alone is enough to deter most people who are moving to new companies.

stantheman

Intel is in crisis. Moore’s Law has come and gone two times since Intel was originally expected to update to a 10nm process. How many Moore cycles until it can get to 7nm? During this decade, resources and talent have flowed into mobile computing, while those focused on PC’s have struggled to remain relevant. Earlier today, Ming-Chi Kuo predicted that an ARM processor will go into Macs within the next couple of years. I expect copy-cat PC makers will follow suit, only a year or two later.

wood1208

Not sure how forming into 3 group can expedite 10nm and future 7nm Fab process ? When Apple feels strong about their A-series processors to replace Intel in MAC laptops, Apple will switch. This switch over can be delayed only if going forward Intel can achieve 10nm and 7nm fab in timely manner.

kimberly

JWSC said:

rob53 said:

Why would Qualcomm say Apple gave secrets to Intel when all intel had to do was talk to the old Qualcomm person they hired in 2015?

As conditions of employment, many employers ask new hires to sign documents related to proprietary data, such as non-disclosure agreements (NDAs).  Even if you never signed an NDA you could still be sued for breach of trust.  Some companies handle this differently by requiring departing employees to not work for a direct competitor for several years, on the threat that the company could sue them.  The threat alone is enough to deter most people who are moving to new companies.

Wow (see bold above) ... in Australia, engaging in that caper is called restraint of trade and is illegal (an NDA would be binding though).

JWSC

Oh Intel.  What happened to ya?  Apple will be migrating away.  Don’t need to be a fortune teller to see that in the cards.

The A Series was designed from the ground up to tightly manage power consumption.  I wonder what the implications are for the A Series architecture when it doesn’t need to worry about power requirements.  If you wanted to crank up the clock speed you’d likely have to move back up to 10-14 nm wafers.  But I suspect that more fundamental architectural changes would need to be made to realize the full potential of plugged in A Series power.

JWSC

kimberly said:

JWSC said:

rob53 said:

Why would Qualcomm say Apple gave secrets to Intel when all intel had to do was talk to the old Qualcomm person they hired in 2015?

As conditions of employment, many employers ask new hires to sign documents related to proprietary data, such as non-disclosure agreements (NDAs).  Even if you never signed an NDA you could still be sued for breach of trust.  Some companies handle this differently by requiring departing employees to not work for a direct competitor for several years, on the threat that the company could sue them.  The threat alone is enough to deter most people who are moving to new companies.

Wow (see bold above) ... in Australia, engaging in that caper is called restraint of trade and is illegal (an NDA would be binding though).

In the US if you haven’t signed anything during your employment then, technically, you’re off the hook.  But that might not stop an unhappy employer from suing you anyway.  Now, you’d probably win - after years of legal expenses (and heck, maybe your current employer will cover them).  But as I said, the threat is enough to deter most people.  Odds are that if you are a high value employee you have already been asked to sign something.  So note to all, when you take a new job read the fine print!

sweetheart777

Since Apple doesn't sell servers, or sell its custom ASIC to any outside manufacturers, Apple's migration doesn't really hurt Intel. Intel makes the big money on servers. Apple is less than 3% of Intel's overall business, and that's including modems and lesser components. The volume on Macs is insignificant compared to the number of Chromebook and Windows PC devices sold.

lkrupp

Corey Vixie said:

More and more, the articles around Intel's 10nm delays are reminding me the speculation leading up to "the G5 PowerBook". I doubt Apple is ready to sour the relationship with Intel before they've got a replacement ready to go, but I wonder if they might diversify with AMD in the near future. AMD's willingness to entertain semi-custom designs and their new series of Zen-based APUs would be good fits for the new Mac Pro and Mac mini, respectively, but Intel would undoubtedly view that... poorly.

Unlikely to happen. More likely to happen is a transition to in house A processors for the Mac like the iPhone. A unified platform with cross developed apps seems likely for Apple’s future. Traditionalists will foam at the mouth, of course. What about Boot Camp they will sputter. Apple did it once before with the PowerPC to Intel migration. I’d bet serious money that Apple already has macOS running on the A chip architecture in the lab. All they’ll need is a Rosetta style translator to make the jump. Developers like Adobe and Microsoft will follow. Office already runs on iOS.

StrangeDays

lkrupp said:

Corey Vixie said:

More and more, the articles around Intel's 10nm delays are reminding me the speculation leading up to "the G5 PowerBook". I doubt Apple is ready to sour the relationship with Intel before they've got a replacement ready to go, but I wonder if they might diversify with AMD in the near future. AMD's willingness to entertain semi-custom designs and their new series of Zen-based APUs would be good fits for the new Mac Pro and Mac mini, respectively, but Intel would undoubtedly view that... poorly.

Unlikely to happen. More likely to happen is a transition to in house A processors for the Mac like the iPhone. A unified platform with cross developed apps seems likely for Apple’s future. Traditionalists will foam at the mouth, of course. What about Boot Camp they will sputter. Apple did it once before with the PowerPC to Intel migration. I’d bet serious money that Apple already has macOS running on the A chip architecture in the lab. All they’ll need is a Rosetta style translator to make the jump. Developers like Adobe and Microsoft will follow. Office already runs on iOS.

If you mean the same exact apps & UI on iOS and macOS, I don’t know how many times Craig and the execs have to say they don’t foresee that happening for reasons they’ve openly discussed. 

tzeshan

stantheman said:

Intel is in crisis. Moore’s Law has come and gone two times since Intel was originally expected to update to a 10nm process. How many Moore cycles until it can get to 7nm? During this decade, resources and talent have flowed into mobile computing, while those focused on PC’s have struggled to remain relevant. Earlier today, Ming-Chi Kuo predicted that an ARM processor will go into Macs within the next couple of years. I expect copy-cat PC makers will follow suit, only a year or two later.

Moore's law is tied to growing PC sales. But the industry has moved to smartphones. Its financially impossible for Intel to invest in PC cpu if the sales are decreasing. 

normm

JWSC said:

Oh Intel.  What happened to ya?  Apple will be migrating away.  Don’t need to be a fortune teller to see that in the cards.

The A Series was designed from the ground up to tightly manage power consumption.  I wonder what the implications are for the A Series architecture when it doesn’t need to worry about power requirements.  If you wanted to crank up the clock speed you’d likely have to move back up to 10-14 nm wafers.  But I suspect that more fundamental architectural changes would need to be made to realize the full potential of plugged in A Series power.

Smaller feature sizes allow shorter signal paths, lower parasitic capacitance, and lower voltages, all of which reduce power dissipation per transistor per clock cycle.  So whether you clock slower for low dissipation, or faster for best performance, it seems to me that small features help -- but there are undoubtedly subtleties as we approach physical limits.  Of course higher performance chips also use more parallel circuitry, which means more transistors to clock, but this is true regardless of the feature size. 

mattinoz

lkrupp said:

Corey Vixie said:

More and more, the articles around Intel's 10nm delays are reminding me the speculation leading up to "the G5 PowerBook". I doubt Apple is ready to sour the relationship with Intel before they've got a replacement ready to go, but I wonder if they might diversify with AMD in the near future. AMD's willingness to entertain semi-custom designs and their new series of Zen-based APUs would be good fits for the new Mac Pro and Mac mini, respectively, but Intel would undoubtedly view that... poorly.

Unlikely to happen. More likely to happen is a transition to in house A processors for the Mac like the iPhone. A unified platform with cross developed apps seems likely for Apple’s future. Traditionalists will foam at the mouth, of course. What about Boot Camp they will sputter. Apple did it once before with the PowerPC to Intel migration. I’d bet serious money that Apple already has macOS running on the A chip architecture in the lab. All they’ll need is a Rosetta style translator to make the jump. Developers like Adobe and Microsoft will follow. Office already runs on iOS.

Why not both?

Relegate x86 to a applications coprocessor use A series as the main platform chip. Intel are already doing a custom for Cray and are said to be dumping Phi for a commercialised variation of the Cray chip. Apple gets unified platform across the line up to the PCIe bridge which on iOS it just connects to the ligthening port. On Mac would connect into a PCIe hub and on to higher bandwidth ports and the co-processor(s). Even maybe in the future add eAPU support to Mac and iOS in future. Each Mac range would be defined by co-processor load in it.  Software either runs completely on coprocessor as legacy or marizpan completely on Aseries with a couple of options in between to be running on both. 

radarthekat

kimberly said:

JWSC said:

rob53 said:

Why would Qualcomm say Apple gave secrets to Intel when all intel had to do was talk to the old Qualcomm person they hired in 2015?

As conditions of employment, many employers ask new hires to sign documents related to proprietary data, such as non-disclosure agreements (NDAs).  Even if you never signed an NDA you could still be sued for breach of trust.  Some companies handle this differently by requiring departing employees to not work for a direct competitor for several years, on the threat that the company could sue them.  The threat alone is enough to deter most people who are moving to new companies.

Wow (see bold above) ... in Australia, engaging in that caper is called restraint of trade and is illegal (an NDA would be binding though).

I signed such a document, called a non-compete in the US.  As Vp of Product Development and designer of my company’s software apps you can imagine my company not wanting me to jump to a competitor.  The non-compete term was 18 months post employment.  But no worries as I was all done with the software game when I left in 2011, preferring to become a full-time investor since.  

bill1357

Under Murthy?  who has sat on this and let it flounder since 2015?  He should be replaced too.

Intel once was so far ahead in process tech that they couldn't see the competition in a rear view mirror.  Of course in the 80's was it, they were pathetically behind, but they fixed that.

I don't doubt that Intel has fantastic technologists, but it seems that they are in dire need of someone who can make a project work; namely process INTEGRATION---since they apparently don't have that person, reorganizing with the same "can't do" managers isn't going to help.  The 3 fold separation can work though IF IF the tech dev mgr can transfer tech.  No good to "invent it" and have manufacturing throw up their hands and say "why didn't you think about us?".  Been there; fixed that, and could again.

FYI "Process Integration" was invented by YT Loh from Fairchild and Trilogy, but they wouldn't listen to him.  At Amdahl we did and made it work.

AND lastly, since no one here is objecting, I presume that outsourcing to TSMC is a good idea, but imagine they EMBARRASSMENT---it does say something positive though about people willing to say they "can't do" and need help, rather than continuing to suffer.  And, 50% under capacity on 14nm?  what kind of planning is that?  No matter the market, it didn't soar THAT FAST that it could totally preclude planning.

claire1

StrangeDays said:

lkrupp said:

Corey Vixie said:

More and more, the articles around Intel's 10nm delays are reminding me the speculation leading up to "the G5 PowerBook". I doubt Apple is ready to sour the relationship with Intel before they've got a replacement ready to go, but I wonder if they might diversify with AMD in the near future. AMD's willingness to entertain semi-custom designs and their new series of Zen-based APUs would be good fits for the new Mac Pro and Mac mini, respectively, but Intel would undoubtedly view that... poorly.

Unlikely to happen. More likely to happen is a transition to in house A processors for the Mac like the iPhone. A unified platform with cross developed apps seems likely for Apple’s future. Traditionalists will foam at the mouth, of course. What about Boot Camp they will sputter. Apple did it once before with the PowerPC to Intel migration. I’d bet serious money that Apple already has macOS running on the A chip architecture in the lab. All they’ll need is a Rosetta style translator to make the jump. Developers like Adobe and Microsoft will follow. Office already runs on iOS.

If you mean the same exact apps & UI on iOS and macOS, I don’t know how many times Craig and the execs have to say they don’t foresee that happening for reasons they’ve openly discussed. 

I'm sure that is not what he means.

sully54

I'm wondering, are there technical differences in complexity between intel chips and TSMC made A-series chips that make apple's chips more possible to make on a 7nm design? Or to put my question another way, are Intel chips more technically complex that it's harder to design in on a 7nm scale? I don't have much technical knowledge on Intel's development process but I just don't understand how they're so behind.

bill1357

Not sure if this is true, but it seems like I have heard that Intels 10 nm and TSMC's are quite different and that perhaps if Intels ever works, it will be noticeably better than TSMC's at the same line width.  One of course has to also take into account that sometimes a tech number in nm refers only to SOME of the features, like maybe the company pushed one or a few features smaller while the overall chip is more represented by a larger nm number.  No real way to tell without reading the tech papers.  Listening to the "advertising" doesn't hack it.