gmgravytrain

nunzy said:

Only Apple is rich enough to pull this off. That's because we buy their products.

Qualcomm won't have any problems keeping pace with Apple in the nanometer race. You watch. They have to keep pace in order for all the Android flagships to match Apple's iPhone. It's a matter of pride for Qualcomm. They'll definitely have some 7nm Snapdragon 865, so Apple won't have any bragging rights. There's no way Apple is going to be allowed to sit alone at the top of the heap of having the densest SoCs for smartphones. I don't think Apple has enough money or the determination to break Qualcomm and stop them from going nm to nm against Apple. Apple may get there first but it won't last long.

nunzy said:

Google sells your identity to the highest bidder. You can't trust Google.

But that's why investors love Google. Data collection is one of the easiest money-making schemes and makes investors rich. It can turn personal data into solid gold and there's absolutely no regulation. Google can do whatever it wants with personal data and get away with it. Think of all those couple of billion Android devices just sucking personal data for Google to use. That alone warrants a high P/E for Google. Android OS will totally dominate the BRIC nations and Apple's iOS will get almost nothing. Those consumers don't even care what happens to their personal data because all they want is "free" services. Apple loses out on big data and that's one big reason why Apple's P/E is range-bound.

nunzy said:

Low priced Apple products are a bad idea. Apple users are elites, and should not be diluted with low income people.

Although your comment is dripping with sarcasm, I have to agree. Apple users should feel as being part of the elite. As long as Apple makes an excellent product where it's not constantly thermal-throttling and the keyboard works longer than a few weeks, I'm willing to be part of that elite. Let the poor people buy Lenovo, HP, or Dell and be happy running Windows OS. It's up to the consumer how much they're willing to pay for a product so I have no problem with Apple charging more as long as the product is actually worth the extra cost. I don't want to pay more for a product that is full of easily corrected flaws.

Soli said:

bonobob said:

linkman said:

Intel is running up against the fact that wavelengths of light can get only so short (10 nm is pretty stinking short) and physics is going to win at attempts to get much smaller. A transistor can't get smaller than an atom. Progress on ICs is getting slower and will need some sort of breakthrough (like power reduction, using neural-type processing, memristors, light instead of electricity, etc.) before we can see performance improvement rates that we've experienced over the last 40 years.

On the other hand, Apple's current lineup of iPhones is rocking a 10nm SOC, so physics is not the limitation.  Intel is just behind on the manufacturing tech.

Edit: Missing apostrophe.

I don't understand how Intel is measuring in a different way from others, but I'm told that Apple's SoC's at 10nm are actually more inline with 14nm.

I'd seen some youtube article telling about how nanometer designs can measured differently, so one of a larger size can be equivalent to another of a smaller size. I think it has to do with the way the gates are designed or just liberal ways of measuring gate size. This video explains it in some detail:

linkman said:

Intel is running up against the fact that wavelengths of light can get only so short (10 nm is pretty stinking short) and physics is going to win at attempts to get much smaller. A transistor can't get smaller than an atom. Progress on ICs is getting slower and will need some sort of breakthrough (like power reduction, using neural-type processing, memristors, light instead of electricity, etc.) before we can see performance improvement rates that we've experienced over the last 40 years.

Actually, there are working 5nm transistors that should be going into production in 2020. It's just amazing. https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/05/ibm-creates-a-new-transistor-type-for-5nm-silicon-chips/ I'd heard if we could go to some other materials from silicon, transistor gates could be made much smaller without having an electron tunneling problem.