By: Mark Roulo (nothanks.delete@this.xxx.com), October 28, 2020 7:09 pm
Room: Moderated Discussions
anon (an.delete@this.n.net) on October 28, 2020 3:43 pm wrote:
> defaltluser (no.delete@this.thanks.net) on October 28, 2020 2:46 pm wrote:
> > anon (anon.delete@this.anon.anon) on October 27, 2020 8:52 pm wrote:
> > > There is another cost to mergers / acquisitions, and that is focus. Intel is in more
> > > desperate straits now and thus is forced to focus, while AMD doesn't have that sort
> > > of pressure at this time, so buys Xilinx and thus spreads itself around more, losing
> > > focus. Unless there is clear synergistic advantage, mergers should NOT happen.
> >
> > Intel is divesting Flash because 3D Xpoint has made it redundant. Also the western phone
> > market is saturated even before Covid (and flash prices have cratered afterward).
> >
> > Intel are not divesting their 5-year-old investment in Altera, because there is benefit
> > in adding built-in programmable cores to compute processors. If Intel thinks there is
> > value there, then AMD buying it's big brother would tend to make a lot of sense.
> >
>
> Intel and AMD also believed there was value in "GPGPU", so Intel started developing
> Larrabee and AMD acquired ATI, but in the end both Larrabee and HSA failed.
Larrabee was an Intel attempt to create a discrete GPU without hardware Raster Output Units, not a general purpose GPGPU chip. It was subsequently re-targeted at GPGPU loads, but it was never competitive with NVidia offerings. But Intel did not start Larrabee because Intel believed in GPGPU.
AMD purchased ATI in 2006. NVidia released CUDA in 2007 and AMD never showed any serious intention of providing a software stack to make effective use of ATI GPUs for GPGPU loads. It would be tough to argue that AMD purchased ATI because AMD believed there was value in GPGPU given the subsequent lack of any interest in pushing GPGPU.
*Both* Larrabee and the ATI acquisition began as straightforward GPU plays.
Larrabee just failed as a GPU.
And AMD took so long to make APUs containing both AMD x86 CPUs and ATI GPUs that Intel managed to release iGPU products in 2010 (Westmere cores with HD Graphics) before AMD got out its first APU in 2011.
> defaltluser (no.delete@this.thanks.net) on October 28, 2020 2:46 pm wrote:
> > anon (anon.delete@this.anon.anon) on October 27, 2020 8:52 pm wrote:
> > > There is another cost to mergers / acquisitions, and that is focus. Intel is in more
> > > desperate straits now and thus is forced to focus, while AMD doesn't have that sort
> > > of pressure at this time, so buys Xilinx and thus spreads itself around more, losing
> > > focus. Unless there is clear synergistic advantage, mergers should NOT happen.
> >
> > Intel is divesting Flash because 3D Xpoint has made it redundant. Also the western phone
> > market is saturated even before Covid (and flash prices have cratered afterward).
> >
> > Intel are not divesting their 5-year-old investment in Altera, because there is benefit
> > in adding built-in programmable cores to compute processors. If Intel thinks there is
> > value there, then AMD buying it's big brother would tend to make a lot of sense.
> >
>
> Intel and AMD also believed there was value in "GPGPU", so Intel started developing
> Larrabee and AMD acquired ATI, but in the end both Larrabee and HSA failed.
Larrabee was an Intel attempt to create a discrete GPU without hardware Raster Output Units, not a general purpose GPGPU chip. It was subsequently re-targeted at GPGPU loads, but it was never competitive with NVidia offerings. But Intel did not start Larrabee because Intel believed in GPGPU.
AMD purchased ATI in 2006. NVidia released CUDA in 2007 and AMD never showed any serious intention of providing a software stack to make effective use of ATI GPUs for GPGPU loads. It would be tough to argue that AMD purchased ATI because AMD believed there was value in GPGPU given the subsequent lack of any interest in pushing GPGPU.
*Both* Larrabee and the ATI acquisition began as straightforward GPU plays.
Larrabee just failed as a GPU.
And AMD took so long to make APUs containing both AMD x86 CPUs and ATI GPUs that Intel managed to release iGPU products in 2010 (Westmere cores with HD Graphics) before AMD got out its first APU in 2011.
