By: Richard Cownie (tich.delete@this.pobox.com), February 4, 2013 5:01 pm
Room: Moderated Discussions
Daniel Bizo (fejenagy.delete@this.gmail.com) on February 4, 2013 3:45 pm wrote:
> Richard Cownie (tich.delete@this.pobox.com) on February 3, 2013 6:10 am wrote:
> > Michael S (already5chosen.delete@this.yahoo.com) on February 3, 2013 2:51 am wrote:
> > > Richard Cownie (tich.delete@this.pobox.com) on February 2, 2013 7:04 pm wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Yes. Which is still much too high to compete against current ARM-based
> > > > chips, at $17-21.
> > >
> > > Where do your numbers are coming from?
> > > If exynos4/5 and Tegra 3/4 are so cheap then how much does ST-Ericsson charge for their NovaThor chipsets?
> >
> > google "iPhone 5 BOM" and "Nexus 7 BOM". If you know which phones contain the NovaThor,
> > you may be able to find it similarly.
> >
>
> Those are mostly just best guesses, especially for vertically integrated design manufactureres, and depending
> on the source you chose, they can vary significantly.
I would agree the numbers are questionable, and if anyone cares to present evidence
for different numbers, I would welcome better information.
>Secondly, smartphone SoC ASP have been on the rise
> as a combination of increased integration (sorry if this was established somewhere in the thread already)
> AND emphasise on pushing up performance for ever better customer experience and richer apps.
I think that trend may reverse, because a) with A15/Krait-class cores in future,
together with better-optimized Android software, it seems that dual-core phones
will be sufficient for the vast majority of users; b) now that screen resolution
has reached 1080p, the pixel counts aren't likely to increase much further so the
GPU's don't need to get much faster (again, for the vast majority)
> Not only that Intel has made huge leaps towards much lower perf and power design points, but at
Yes, but from a starting point - Atom - that was far too high power.
> the same time, these smartphone design made similarly significant progress to Intel's traditional
> domain and comfort zone -- high-perf logic. While it's obvious that a smartphone as a form factor
> will never allow such high power points as a notebook or PC, the direction is very clear. This pursuit
> of performance and energy efficiency plays surprisingly well to Intel's hand, which basically has
> to competitive advantages: microarchitecture design and semiconductor manufacturing.
I remain skeptical about whether Intel really has a strength in microarchitecture
design for low-power devices - it seems to me that's a very different problem than
high-end core design, and also one where both ARM cores, and AMD's Bobcat, seem
arguably as good as Intel's efforts so far.
>
> Even Qualcomm can only have a fraction of the financial and engineering resources of Intel's to
> compete against the overlapping 4-5 Atom and low power 'big core' design teams (for tablets), and
> the process disadvantage is going to be painful in 12, and demoralising is 24 months time.
The process disadvantage only comes into play if Intel is willing to use bleeding-edge
fab capacity for sub-$20 ASP smartphone chips instead of over-$60 laptop chips,
which seems very questionable (even given the likely ratios of die area, the revenue
per mm2 would seem unlikely to favor the smartphone chips).
It seems that part of the reason why they sold XScale in 2006 was that it couldn't
compete effectively against TI and others on old fabs, and they weren't willing to use the
new fabs for a low-margin product. Possibly that changes if the decline of x86
continues, we'll see.
>
> I don't think the question is how Intel is going to compete in chips. The question is the route to
> the market for smartphones.
It's the same thing, isn't it ? They can make good chips, but can they sell them
at a price they'll be happy with ? There seem to be quite a lot of non-technical
obstacles to achieving anything Intel would count as "success" - viz, enough revenue
*and* gross margin to keep building big fabs even as x86 declines.
>With Apple and Samsung locking down the overwhelming majority of the market,
> and with only a handful of other players, it will take a lot of persuasion and commitment on Intel's
> part to convince any of the larger players to shift. Intel was too late for both Nokia's and RIM's
> re-launch, Apple prefers in-house, with Samsung also showing such attitude with the flagship products.
> Intel will have the best performing chips soon, but who will care enough to buy it?
> Richard Cownie (tich.delete@this.pobox.com) on February 3, 2013 6:10 am wrote:
> > Michael S (already5chosen.delete@this.yahoo.com) on February 3, 2013 2:51 am wrote:
> > > Richard Cownie (tich.delete@this.pobox.com) on February 2, 2013 7:04 pm wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Yes. Which is still much too high to compete against current ARM-based
> > > > chips, at $17-21.
> > >
> > > Where do your numbers are coming from?
> > > If exynos4/5 and Tegra 3/4 are so cheap then how much does ST-Ericsson charge for their NovaThor chipsets?
> >
> > google "iPhone 5 BOM" and "Nexus 7 BOM". If you know which phones contain the NovaThor,
> > you may be able to find it similarly.
> >
>
> Those are mostly just best guesses, especially for vertically integrated design manufactureres, and depending
> on the source you chose, they can vary significantly.
I would agree the numbers are questionable, and if anyone cares to present evidence
for different numbers, I would welcome better information.
>Secondly, smartphone SoC ASP have been on the rise
> as a combination of increased integration (sorry if this was established somewhere in the thread already)
> AND emphasise on pushing up performance for ever better customer experience and richer apps.
I think that trend may reverse, because a) with A15/Krait-class cores in future,
together with better-optimized Android software, it seems that dual-core phones
will be sufficient for the vast majority of users; b) now that screen resolution
has reached 1080p, the pixel counts aren't likely to increase much further so the
GPU's don't need to get much faster (again, for the vast majority)
> Not only that Intel has made huge leaps towards much lower perf and power design points, but at
Yes, but from a starting point - Atom - that was far too high power.
> the same time, these smartphone design made similarly significant progress to Intel's traditional
> domain and comfort zone -- high-perf logic. While it's obvious that a smartphone as a form factor
> will never allow such high power points as a notebook or PC, the direction is very clear. This pursuit
> of performance and energy efficiency plays surprisingly well to Intel's hand, which basically has
> to competitive advantages: microarchitecture design and semiconductor manufacturing.
I remain skeptical about whether Intel really has a strength in microarchitecture
design for low-power devices - it seems to me that's a very different problem than
high-end core design, and also one where both ARM cores, and AMD's Bobcat, seem
arguably as good as Intel's efforts so far.
>
> Even Qualcomm can only have a fraction of the financial and engineering resources of Intel's to
> compete against the overlapping 4-5 Atom and low power 'big core' design teams (for tablets), and
> the process disadvantage is going to be painful in 12, and demoralising is 24 months time.
The process disadvantage only comes into play if Intel is willing to use bleeding-edge
fab capacity for sub-$20 ASP smartphone chips instead of over-$60 laptop chips,
which seems very questionable (even given the likely ratios of die area, the revenue
per mm2 would seem unlikely to favor the smartphone chips).
It seems that part of the reason why they sold XScale in 2006 was that it couldn't
compete effectively against TI and others on old fabs, and they weren't willing to use the
new fabs for a low-margin product. Possibly that changes if the decline of x86
continues, we'll see.
>
> I don't think the question is how Intel is going to compete in chips. The question is the route to
> the market for smartphones.
It's the same thing, isn't it ? They can make good chips, but can they sell them
at a price they'll be happy with ? There seem to be quite a lot of non-technical
obstacles to achieving anything Intel would count as "success" - viz, enough revenue
*and* gross margin to keep building big fabs even as x86 declines.
>With Apple and Samsung locking down the overwhelming majority of the market,
> and with only a handful of other players, it will take a lot of persuasion and commitment on Intel's
> part to convince any of the larger players to shift. Intel was too late for both Nokia's and RIM's
> re-launch, Apple prefers in-house, with Samsung also showing such attitude with the flagship products.
> Intel will have the best performing chips soon, but who will care enough to buy it?
