Intel's next-generation 7nm chips delayed until 6 month
Intel says that production of its next-generation chips will be set back by 2022, with sales being delayed by its current-generation chips. The company said it was exploring "contingency plans" such as third-party manufacturers producing some of its products.
Intel said in its earnings report on Thursday that it had delayed its new 7-nanometer processor by nearly six months as internal testing revealed the yield - the number of processors acceptable from manufacturing - from one of the company's internal estimates The year is behind.
In June, Apple said it would transition its Mac computers away from Intel processors and design its own chips.
One expert said Intel risked leaving a gap for competitors to step into.
Intel said it had identified a "defect" in its manufacturing process that led to the new delay.
What is a next-generation chip?
Chip-makers try to miniaturise their technology and processes so that they can pack more transistors on to a single silicon chip.
Doing so typically creates faster processors which are more energy-efficient.
This can give smartphones and laptops a longer battery life, and reduce energy consumption by data centres.
Intel's current-generation chips are described as 10nm (nanometre) chips, and its next-generation will be 7nm chips.
These numbers used to be a measure of the tiny spaces in between transistors on a chip, but today they are simply marketing terms.
"Today, the metric commonly used by the experts to compare two different technologies is the transistor density," said Dr Ian Cutress, senior CPU editor of the technology news site AnandTech, which reported Intel's announcement.
Intel's most dense 10nm designs are broadly equivalent to the most dense 7nm designs by rival chip-maker TSMC, he said.
This is a move that was announced during Apple's developer conference last month. Once Apple makes the transition, which it says will take about two years, it will no longer need to depend on Intel's product cycle - and delays - before it can deliver new Macs to the market.
EO Tim Cook said during WWDC that Apple's first Mac would be based on Arm Holdings' designs powered by its own chips. Apple already makes its own chips based on Arm for iPhones and iPads, and they are now powerful enough to power desktop and laptop computers.
Is Intel's Delay Important?
Delays in producing the next generation of chips could give rivals a head start.
Intel's business has two main parts: It designs and manufactures computer chips. Most of its rivals do only one or the other.
TSMC simply manufactures chips designed by other companies, such as AMD and Apple.
Staying away from Intel means that Apple now controls its fate for its laptops and desktops in the same way that it does for the iPhone and iPad. It will not have to wait until 2022 or until 2023 to launch powerful new computers that might otherwise try to come on the market on their own.
"During most of the 2010s, one of Intel's key marketable industry-leading features was that it was ahead of its competitors in manufacturing technology," said Dr Cutress. "In recent years, Intel has been unable to develop new leading manufacturing technologies on its original timescales."
While Intel's current-generation 10nm chips were delayed by more than two years, TSMC was shipping its equivalent 7nm chips in bulk to major customers such as Apple, AMD, Huawei and Qualcomm.
While AMD already has a generation of current-generation chips on sale, Intel "has no answer for similar products in desktop computing, and is only promising a small launch of its first generation 10nm server processors by the end of the year", Dr Cutress said."With all the delays Intel had on its 10nm production, its new 7nm chips were meant to solve that issue and make 10nm more of a footnote in Intel's history. The delay to 7nm implies Intel is having issues with the development," he added.
If Intel fails to execute properly, it leaves a big hole for its core competition, as well as 20 years of confidence in Intel's ability to deliver high-performance and high-efficiency computing products. Wipes out.
Apple didn’t always rely on Intel. In 2005, it announced it was moving Macs away from its PowerPC chips to Intel processors by 2007. But, Apple’s CEO at the time, Steve Jobs, suggested that move wouldn’t be permanent.
“We think Intel’s technology will help us create the personal computers for the next 10 years,” Jobs said at the time.
