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Intel IT Technology

Intel Slips, and a High-Profile Supercomputer Is Delayed (nytimes.com) 77

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
The chip maker was selected for an Energy Department project meant to show American tech independence. But problems at Intel have thrown a wrench into the effort. From a report: When it selected Intel to help build a $500 million supercomputer last year, the Energy Department bet that computer chips made in the United States could help counter a technology challenge from China. Officials at the department's Argonne National Laboratory predicted that the machine, called Aurora and scheduled to be installed at facilities near Chicago in 2021, would be the first U.S. system to reach a technical pinnacle known as exascale computing. Intel pledged to supply three kinds of chips for the system from its factories in Oregon, Arizona and New Mexico. But a technology delay by the Silicon Valley giant has thrown a wrench into that plan, the latest sign of headwinds facing government and industry efforts to reverse America's dependence on foreign-made semiconductors. It was also an indication of the challenges ahead for U.S. hopes to regain a lead in critical semiconductor manufacturing technology.

Intel, which supplies electronic brains for most personal computers and web services, has long driven miniaturization advances that make electronic devices smaller, faster and cheaper. But Robert Swan, its chief executive, warned last month that the next production advance would be 12 months late and suggested that some chips for Aurora might be made outside Intel factories. Intel's problems make it close to impossible that Aurora will be installed on schedule, researchers and analysts said. And shifting a key component to foreign factories would undermine company and government hopes of an all-American design. "That is part of the story they were trying to sell," said Jack Dongarra, a computer scientist at the University of Tennessee who tracks supercomputer installations around the world. "Now they stumbled."
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Intel Slips, and a High-Profile Supercomputer Is Delayed More

Intel Slips, and a High-Profile Supercomputer Is Delayed

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  • Maybe... (Score:5, Funny)

    by mschaffer ( 97223 ) on Thursday August 27, 2020 @11:28AM (#60446592)

    Maybe they should have used AMD?

  • seriously, this shit is becoming beyond ridiculous, I can't even ridicule it anymore. Just stop it. Stop. Seriously. As time passes, the way this stuff is reported becomes more and more idiotic.

    • Is it really that big a deal? This is the part of the story that ticks you off?

      • Yes, it is, and yes.

      • I'm with him. I read "electronic brains" and I literally winced. Computers are mainstream enough at this point that there's absolutely no reason to be so ridiculously imprecise. They supply processors. If somebody really doesn't know what a processor is, they likely would have zero interest in a story about Intel delaying a super computer.

        Know your audience. Or, better yet, hire a technical editor before posting an article about a technical subject.

    • ..yeah, that made me raise an eyebrow, too, this news story is clearly aimed at the non-technical public, many of which would stumble over the 5-syllable word 'microprocessor' (although what they're talking about here, even if it's hard to guess at with it being so much of a fluff piece, is probably more than one integrated circuit comprising a processor, not just a single-chip microprocessor). Remember, there are still some people even in 1st World countries that think that computers are some sort of 'magi

    • Re:"which supplies electronic brains", come on.. (Score:4, Informative)

      by cygnusvis ( 6168614 ) on Thursday August 27, 2020 @12:32PM (#60446880)
      The Chinese word for computer is translated as "electronic brain".
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Production reliability problems (Score:5, Informative)

    by Rick Schumann ( 4662797 ) on Thursday August 27, 2020 @12:02PM (#60446748) Journal
    It's been a couple years since I did any work for Intel (and good riddance to them!) but when I did they were having some serious problems getting even 10nm to work reliably enough and have a large enough usable production yield to really be viable, much more so than previous less-dense circuitry, so I'm not totally surprised. Might help if they didn't have at least half if not more of their engineers as 'contract workers' instead of direct employees who have an actual stake in the outcome beyond their next paycheck.

  • After decades of growing dependence on foreign semiconductor fabs, it was both vain and foolish to expect that any American company, or even a group of them, could bring it all back home that quickly.

    The fact that it originated in the States doesn't mean that all the folks you outsourced it to (in the name of extra profits) didn't learn a lot and improve upon it. It also doesn't mean that they won't turn the dinner you're expecting into their breakfast when you try to compete with them. You've grown fat, la

  • Intel need to get their manufacturing fixed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by GregMmm ( 5115215 ) on Thursday August 27, 2020 @12:19PM (#60446822)

    This is a big problem for a manufacturing company, yes that is what they are. Not a technology company. The fact that CEO Robert Swan is thinking of having their silicon made in other fabs is very telling of a much bigger problem.

    They're new fab issues have been going on for a number of years. Maybe some of their strategies have finally caught up with them. Such as:

    -Giving early "retirement" or separation packages to older employees, and replace them with "recent college graduates". You know, some of them old peeps you got rid of have turned on a fab or 2 and have really great knowledge. RCGs are cheap have no experience. By the way, can't tell you how many engineers/developers just ship from Intel straight to Amazon. Weird Amazon doesn't know about silicon and server development.. except when they hire the whole team away....

    -Stop pushing so hard to hire women/minorities. Some people might bristle at this, but I'm ok with it. Hire the best employee, not because they have a different color skin or are a different sex. I know a woman engineer at Intel that was pissed to think she was hired because she was a woman and not off of her merits.

    -Focus on what you're supposed to be. Manufacturing. If you can't tell by now I worked for Intel for a number of years. I can't tell you how many stupid ideas they tried to come up with and fail, or better yet make something that is good and stop at 90% done. The article mentions Xeon Phi. This is the GPU used for compute. That hardware was originally developed years ago and before NVidia had a compute GPU. Then they just pulled the plug, waited a couple of years and tried again after others held the market. How much money did Intel waste there? Don't get me started on phones. Everyone in the entire company knew it would fail. I could go on and on.

    So what I see is a company that was coasting on it's past, dumping alot of people which is knowledge and experience, hiring to the pressures of society and not getting the best. It take a while for the giant to fall, but if Intel doesn't change their ways soon...

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by cygnusvis ( 6168614 )

      replace them with "recent college graduates"

      An American problem, not an Intel problem.

      ire the best employee, not because they have a different color skin or are a different sex.

      An American problem, not an Intel problem. So far, most of Intel's issues are due to American culture. I blame MBAs and communists

    • What you're implying here is that one of the reasons for the decline of Intel is that there are too many women and minorities working there, and that they are much worse at their jobs than white men.

      It's an extraordinary claim that you fail to back up. I'm sure your friend was indeed pissed at the thought that she might not be best for the job, but presumably that's because she's very skilled. It may very well be that without whatever programs they have in place, they would have bypassed her expertise. Do n

    • Hire the best employee

      Research has shown time and time again that if you identify the "best" employee in isolation you won't have the best overall functioning team or organisation. "Best" includes applying research which shows that diverse teams of like skills almost universally out-perform their non-diverse counterparts.

  • No one knew. It's an unbelievably complex process. Nobody knew chip making could be so complicated [cnn.com].
    • Totally this. Even on /. I think the art and science of making chips at today's smallest geometries is not appreciated. I do wonder if it will come down to one company (TSMC) in the end. I hate to see it as the US more or less invented chips. But the US is never good at mature technologies, we prefer the high returns.
  • US dependence upon China was extreme and overdue for return to the US.
  • they spent $300 million on diversity [intel.com].

    i mean, $300m is what? ~1/10 of one year's profit? still, priorities.

  • He was there when I was in grad school in the early 90's.

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