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Inflection happens
Complaints about powerhouse Intel have largely been laughable - yeah they missed estimates. Why quibble about ability to forecast the future? The path was straight forward. Client PCs needed ever more chips so what were a few hiccups along the way, especially as the 386 architecture made inroads on the server side?
The great state of chips would roll on...
But this view is changing. Intel looks like a Technology Mighty that finally gets a comeuppance. Its long-running Itanium escapade played out badly. Its move into servers, though successful by many measures, seems to have left it playing catch-up on the desktop. It seemed to have taken its eye off the ball, and it is a fair guess that a rare management shakeup may result.
This week at the IDF, Intel's Paul Otellini described the company's move to dual-core microprocessors. Unfortunately for Intel, rival AMD demo'd a 386-architecture dual-core chip prior to Otellini's announcement. Thus, Intel will not enjoy any particular lead in this new chip battle. Otellini is able, and looked a logical successor to Craig Barrett - who always appeared more like a colonial governor than a Silicon Valley mogul - but missed ship schedules for chips are becoming familiar on Otellini's watch.
CTO Pat Gelsinger and a host of Intel scientists must stand accused too. The company's fixation on processor speed, to the distress of other factors, especially power and heat, tripped it up. What constitutes "good computation" for a micro-computer is every changing.
Maybe two-core processors were too obvious! Too simple. That's surprising given the great advances Intel made over the years with simple PLL clock doubling. The Itanium excursion more and more looks like an i860 sidetrip. IBM did the double-core tango with the PowerPC a couple of years ago. What must Andy Grove think!
His "Only the Paranoid Survive" described a company that smelled money and kept it simple. But organizations tend to institutionalize success, often to detriment. These days, AMD seems more paranoid, and wise. Inflection happens.
Related
Intel Plans to Exploit Chip Trends - WSJ [sub req], Sept 8, 2004
At IDF: Intel opts for multiprocessor cores - Sept 7, 2004
To IDF Otellini, Gelsinger keynotes - Sept 7, 2004
Also
Xilinx, Sandia tools
Here is a combo that somewhat relieves "single-event upsets" for harsh environment applications. Good for those occassions when one bad event can ruin your whole FPGA. This is cool stuff: Xilinx's X-Triple Module Redundancy tool automatically generates redundant and associated voting circuitry. - Sept 8, 2004 |
Briefly
Inside Ratyheon skunk works - WSJ [reg req] Sept 8, 2004
FPGA-giant Xilinx organizes to push DSP - Sept 6, 2004
High-speed serial interface IC designer gains funding -EET, Sept 6, 2004
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