My perspective is that every process node is so critical that missing the mark on 10nm had far-reaching ramifications. This kind of technology has gargantuan inertia. The entire hardware ecosystem is strongly interconnected between different firms, and each firm's future technology depends strongly on its past execution. Failure to deliver on 10nm not only jeopardized the smooth rollout of the subsequent process node, it also hurt Intel's ability to deliver large quantities of full-featured chips to customers.
I don't personally believe that Apple would be going to in-house silicon instead of Intel for its flagship laptops if there were a viable way to avoid doing so. Intel is so hurt right now that I surmise it'd be willing to negotiate a fat discount for a flag-carrying customer, and the loss of Windows functionality is kind of disappointing at the upper end of the market (where some tools are clearly better supported by windows or at least x86).
Apple would be doing their own thing anyway. It’s not just about performance, there’s all the myriad other tweaks and customisations you can do on your own SOC to differentiate yourself. We see this with the mobile SOCs. Secure Enclave, sensors, Specialist machine learning accelerators for image processing, exactly the core count and cache you want, optimised bigLittle. The T2 chip is actually a modified iPhone SoC design. With Apple Silicon that can just be a sub-unit in the main SOC.
Yes moving to a new architecture is challenging, but Apple has done it before any this time it can be for keeps. Never again will they be beholden to another company’s priorities, or stuck with me-too processors their competitors have equal access to. A better Intel road map might have resulted in putting the transition off, but I think it was inevitable eventually ever since Apple bought PA Semi.
> My perspective is that every process node is so critical that missing the mark on 10nm had far-reaching ramifications.
The problem with Intel missing on 10 nm is not so much that 10 nm is critical, but that it is critical to their roadmap. Large CPU design is heavily pipelined (like large CPUs), so you miss on the process node, you've still got a team building the refined next release for the year after, and a third team working on the more refined release for the following year.
Then you have decision making; it's hard to get a sense for if you need to go back and make a good new design on 14 nm, if 10 nm is going to be ready enough soon (but it's been several years now of not ready enough), splitting design resources.
Not to be pro-intel but I think they suffered from being too far ahead. They picked a path for 10nm when nobody else could even care. They got stuck in it for too long.. they're so invested and now there's a flocking of competition that can leverage faux-7nm processes that actually sells. If they can get back on track it will be a massive business success.
> My perspective is that every process node is so critical that missing the mark on 10nm had far-reaching ramifications.
I wonder if the migration from "tick-tock" to every third iteration is a case of believing your own PR. "Everything is fine" is what they should have been telling us, while internally it was flashing red lights and klaxons.
Or maybe this started even earlier, with the generations of hardware that gave us Spectre. The target became unreachable, they used smoke and mirrors, and when that blew up they just sort of gave up. Maybe the intervention should have come back then but didn't (cite the "MBAs took over" comment elsewhere in the thread)
From what I've seen, they aren't. At the same node, and same wattage per core, a Ryzen low-power core has better performance per watt and leagues more I/O. That was back in the iPhone X days, I don't think it's gotten any better since
Personally, I'm very skeptical on Apple beating AMD.
I think its partly their desire to add their own IP (use of Apple Silicon as the name is probably revealing of how they think of the new chips) was probably decisive in making the move from x86.
Plus probably still cheaper than any x86 alternative.
It's probably also a great way to avoid head-to-head competition.
Apple marketing always reminded me of how for decades, Rolls-Royce advertisements never would explicitly say things like the engine horsepower and displacement-- just "ample."
Now it will be that much easier to dodge performance questions. "Our machines are not built to run (mainstream software or game), so of course the performance is sketchy in the emulation penalty box. Just run the seven pieces of native MacOS software and it really flies."
They have some history with this with PowerPC but it really doesn't explain why they would make such a move now as they are already using x86 (if it is superior) - makes no sense to put themselves at a disadvantage just to be able to dodge performance questions.
Apple is all about mobile now, even for computers. So they don’t care that AMD has great desktop CPUs, they need great mobile (laptop) CPUs too. The Ryzen 4750U is a great laptop chip, but I can pretty much guarantee that in perf/watt the new Apple Silicon CPUs will blow them out of the water.
Completely agree and it's not just about CPU it's about having a great power efficient GPU and about being able to do things with the neural engine for example that would not be possible on an x86 Intel or AMD laptop design.
I don't personally believe that Apple would be going to in-house silicon instead of Intel for its flagship laptops if there were a viable way to avoid doing so. Intel is so hurt right now that I surmise it'd be willing to negotiate a fat discount for a flag-carrying customer, and the loss of Windows functionality is kind of disappointing at the upper end of the market (where some tools are clearly better supported by windows or at least x86).