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0 pointszamadatix1y ago0 comments

I don't think chip design conversation, particularly for mobile, really have much to do with the semiconductor production conversation. Sticking with that theme when Apple was doing their own mobile CPUs with ARM Intel's semiconductor fab capabilities were industry leading.

I think Intel probably deserves a mention in the article but that line of question feels like the wrong angle of approach for it.

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hedgehog1y ago

Intel was the last company to have domestic leading edge fabs and they used to be one of (the?) highest volume producers by wafer count so they're a pretty big part of any conversation about US semiconductor manufacturing. Another is AMD and their fab spinout as GlobalFoundries, and why GF stopped at 12nm.

Arn_Thor1y ago

You say Intel’s semiconductor fabbing was leading when Apple started to do their mobile processors on ARM. In wafer tech that is probably true, I don’t know. But clearly Intel wasn’t making power efficient mobile chips. Either because they didn’t have the design capability or didn’t consider the segment worth it. There’s an interesting article in that alone.

My only point is that the story of Intel’s disorganized retreat is at least as relevant as Apple’s march forward

sweetjuly1y ago

Intel's relationship to power efficiency is really odd. They only started doing heterogenous/big.LITTLE in 2020 despite ARM based SoCs using it for more than a decade to great advantage. It's not as if portable, battery powered devices was a surprising application to Intel, we've had laptops for decades, and so leaving such strong efficiency gains on the table for years is quite confusing.

zamadatixOP1y ago

This is, again, the difference between an article talking about chip design problems (which America certainly doesn't have) and semiconductor production problems (which America does have).

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