Intel is changing its view on how it upgrades chips.
Intel is changing its view on how it upgrades chips.
Rather than tying chip upgrades directly to the manufacturing process involved, Intel will look at delivering a sustained set of performance upgrades with each new chip architecture.
« We’re going to be focused more on the generation by the amount of performance increment it will give us, » said Venkata Renduchintala, president of Intel’s Client and Internet of Things businesses and its Systems Architecture Group. « I don’t think generations will be tagged to node transitions. »
The performance benefits will matter more, and the process technology that lives underneath is going to be less conspicuous, Renduchintala said.
« We can translate that into more predictable cadence of product, which delivers meaningful performance to stimulate PC upgrades, » Renduchintala said.
In the meanwhile, Intel will speed up its modem development so it can transition to 5G quickly. Intel is looking to grow in the communications market, while giving a lower priority to PCs, a market that has flattened. The company was showing off its new modems at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week.
Intel used to deliver two generations of PC chips with each manufacturing process node, but that changed with its recent 14-nanometer process.
Intel has made three generations of chips including Broadwell, Skylake, and Kaby Lake, on the 14-nanometer process.
