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Originally Posted by jaguar
Which new procs did AMD announce?
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I only heard a report of the AMD presentation which, for me, would be too soon for reports with details.
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... AMD has crap all in the mobile arena which is becoming larger and larger. ... Put it another way, noone can deliver chips like Intel.
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Intel's move into the Pentium M line is probably their most productive move. Intel was losing that market to other 'clone' Pentium manufacturers. This is why a major company wants smaller competitors. That success by the competition got Intel's attention in a market Intel had mostly ignored. That revelation created the Intel Pentium M line. Technology from that processor line is being used in other Intel products as Intel 'discovered' they had a new "unexpected?" energy problem.
But what troubles me have been weak architecture designs in their upper end processors, their failure to make Itanium competitive, their complete avoidance for a 64 bit Pentium, that Intel was surprised by a sudden heat increase and an unexpected need for multi-cores, the Rambus memory fiasco, CSI delays, failures to dominate in the wireless markets (Wi-Fi and Wi-Max), failures to break into the mobile phone business which could be the disruptive technology to replace mobile computing, Intel’s failure to remain competitive in the non-volatile memory market (although rumors persist that Intel may reenter that market with a whole new technology), and numerous other misses.
Especially worrying is that Intel appears to not have a long term strategic plan as it did 10+ years ago that resulted in North/South Bridge, AGP, PCI integration, USB, flat memory models, the many powerdown methods, and simpler peripherals by putting more compression/decompression functions within the processor. Where is the new strategic objective for hardware? It appears Intel has none; therefore shotgunning innovation rather than integrating it in a fashion that made Intel so successful.
Intel's success that included going smaller faster - going directly to 65 nm technology and making it work, its ability to finally close a deal with Apple - Intel has been repeatedly talking and building an Apple with Intel chips, and their success with Pentium M all are achievements. And of course, nobody can mass produce so many more advanced chips so quickly like Intel. That manufacturing and material processing ability has always been an Intel crown jewel which is why previous posts about strained silicon, ovonyx unified memory, high K-dielectrics, and spintronics always include references to Intel.
But AMD keeps eating more of Intel's pie - which Zilog Z-80, Motorola 68000, IBM Power PC, and Transmeta, etc all promised and never could even come close to delivering. AMD is the first competitor to remain and even grow competitive to Intel. Not because AMD is doing things better. I fear a severe management weakness starting to take hold in Intel. This because the new top man talks too much like Carly Fiorina and John Young; both caused bad times in HP.