Volkswagen named their diesels "BlueMotion" to sound environmentally friendly, but it didn't stop any of the pollution.

LOL... Rebranding will not make Intel's CPUs suck any less. There's only so much marketing department can do. Get your s***t together Intel, TSMC is rolling all over you.

Kohl BaasWell, to be honest, the last time that was true was I think 130nm. Since than, the "nm" is actually not the smallest feature, just a naming.

It's still the case. Only 20 years ago we measured FET size as the smallest feature, and now it's fin or gate size, because on modern CPUs the term "transistor" became kinda vague.
It gives manufacturers some leeway on what to pick as their metric and not end up being called a liar on technicalities )))

lasMy old 2600K ran 5 GHz and easily beat Ryzen 1600 @ 4 GHz in 99.9% og games and applications

In which universe? Even if that were somehow true, it's a dead-end platform, so as anything up to Kaby Lake. Not only do you lose modern features, there's also no prospect for upgrade.

lasOnce again, I work with b2b sales and we have tons of huge retailers onboard, Ryzen 1000 is NOT selling like hotcakes, far from it.

And I'm Lisa Su's nephew.

lasWhat sells like hotcakes, especially in the laptop segment, is Intel

No need to retract to laptops. Let's keep going with overclocked 2600K that beats Zen+ in 99.9% of games and applications.

Node density is only half of the story ...
Logic gate size (which is what the X nm denotes after all) matters very much, because that dictates power consumption and thus cooling requirements ...

LTUGamerRenaming will not solve technical issues

Sure but this is not what Intel intended . Intels 10nm is very similar to TSMC 7nm physical size , same for their 7nm compared to TSMC 5nm ( if i recall correctly ) . This is what Intel intends to fix with this strategy .

yeeeemanintel 10nm has the same density and characteristics, presumably, as the TSMC 7nm

Density isn't everything, in fact to get to such high clocks Intel had to sacrifice density on 14nm (with their ++ nodes) & IIRC even for ICL & TGL on 10nm. If you know about Si & how modern x86 designs have evolved you'll also know that "density" is in fact a huge issue for clocking the chips high (enough) & for desktops or HEDT it's not actually better!

Ice Lake Rebadged to 10nm: Why?

So now we have Cannon Lake on ‘10nm’, and Ice Lake originally on 10+ but now rebadged to 10nm, but a different 10nm, with no real explanation as to why. In discussing with a number of peers and analysts in private conversations, the apparent conclusion they have come to is that Intel did not want to admit that its first generation of 10nm product had failed. Ever since then, Intel has attempted to quietly and discreetly shift Cannon Lake under the rug, as if it didn’t exist (it does exist, we did a big review on it, and Crimson Canyon is still for sale today at some of Intel’s biggest partners and major retailers).

Without Intel needing to admit that the first generation had failed, Ice Lake was the true ‘native’ 10nm product that was destined for life in the fast lane for consumers. If that was the case, then the low key presentation at CES 2018 stating it was shipping in 2017 was simply to meet investor targets. Intel never promoted Ice Lake as its first 10nm product, but the fact that the Cannon Lake product wasn't great meant that the company had to try and remove it from people's minds.

On Ice Lake, we studied the Ice Lake design, and we’ve seen lots of notebooks built on it. The fact that Intel called it ‘10th Gen’, and then also released the Comet Lake 14++++ product also called ‘10th Gen’, really ended up confusing the company even more, even in presentations to the press. It was the first time Intel had two products within the same generation of marketing name under different process nodes. It even confused OEM partner marketing teams as well as sales staff.

The problem with calling Ice Lake the new 10nm, is that internally the engineers still called it 10+. As Intel also announced other new products, such as Snow Ridge, or Lakefield, despite these meant to be called under the new 10nm, they would often be cited as ‘10+’ depending on which department of Intel you spoke to.

10NM CHANGES DIRECTION, TWICE

However, I now have an official decoder ring for you, to act as a reference for both users and Intel’s own engineers alike.

AnandTech's Decoder Ring for Intel's 10nm
Product	2020+	First Update	Original
Cannon Lake	-	-	10nm
Ice Lake Ice Lake-SP Lakefield (compute) Snow Ridge Elkhart Lake	10nm	10nm	10+
Tiger Lake SG1 DG1	10nm Superfin	10+	10++
Alder Lake First Xe-HP GPU Sapphire Rapids	10nm Enhanced SuperFin	10++	10+++

For clarity, 10nm Superfin is often abbreviated to 10SF, and 10nm Enhanced Superfin to 10ESF.

Just to be clear, this is also for everyone who thinks that ICL is on the same 10nm as intended for CNL. It is not, ICL is the first 10nm+ product & probably wouldn't make it to the market if it was on the original 10nm node!

londisteZen2: 3.8 billion transistors on 74 mm² - 52 MTr/mm²
Zen3: 4.15 billion transistors on 80.6 mm² - 51.4 MTr/mm²
Renoir: 9.8 billion transistors on 156 mm² - 62.8 MTr/mm²

Intel transistors counts are really hard to come by. There was a throwaway comment in some financial call right after Ice Lake release saying it has over 7B transistors.
Ice Lake die that was the only one out at that point is 122.5 mm² which puts density at about 57 MTr/mm².
Same ballpark. Amount of different elements in the die (cache, GPU etc) probably play a bigger role in density of a specific chip at this point than manufacturing process.

Thank you, I haven't found the numbers I knew I read somewhere (estimations, there are no released specs).

Compared to the Intel promo material for 10nm it's quite a bit less dense:

It will only in turn make TSMC change it as well. That is why their 7nm process name was actually inferior to Intel's 10nm. What they did not count on was Intel not getting it right for ages.

lasMaybe they should. Because alot of fabs are too optimistic about their processnames.

GloFo 12nm was/is far worse than Intel 14nm for example.

Samsung 8nm is not great, but decent - Its probably worse than Intel 10nm

Intels 10nm, is more like TSMC 7nm.
I expect Intel 7nm will be more like TSMC 5nm or even 4nm.

If just performance and watt-usage is good, they can call it whatever they want, could not care less

The next few years are going to be interesting. Can't wait for next gen CPU platforms in 2022+ with DDR5 and PCIe 5.0, not going to get anything before DDR5 has matured (high clocks with decent timings - not going from top-end DDR4 to mediocre DDR5 on launch, thats for sure).

I can wait. I had a teacher long ago who use to say.............."don't wish your life away, it's already too short"

When all else fails... lie.

elghinnarisaThere are actually people out there that do not requires the latest and fastest just for the sake of having it. I still have a old Phenom 2 x6 machine that I use daily, it does exactly what it needs to do and it does it solid as a rock after all these years.

Your CPU isn't a Phenom but a Thuban as all 6-core AMD CPUs back then, even if it was sold as a 4-core and you unlocked it.

i5 13400f, powered by Intels advanced ultra micro fine nanometer rising revengeance

It must be really hard to figure out how many "+"-es to put at the end of node names. May I suggest firing all R&D staff, and employing more PR people to sort this out? They must really get it right for 12th gen.

AusWolfMay I suggest firing all R&D staff, and employing more PR people to sort this out?

I am pretty sure that's what they've been doing all along. :roll:

Haha! That's brilliant! Just lie and call it whatever you want. Then again this is the company that uses waterchillers hidden under tables to lie about their great new cpus.

This is how they are going to ship "7nm" in 2023.

To be fair Intel did try to introduce common sense metrics to quantify nodes but no one else bit, clearly, if you can't beat em join em.
Hopefully Alderlake or nextlake shake's things up.

TheoneandonlyMrKTo be fair Intel did try to introduce common sense metrics to quantify nodes but no one else bit, clearly, if you can't beat em join em.
Hopefully Alderlake or nextlake shake's things up.

This. Basically intel was the only one using common sense node metrics, and it made them sound way more behind than they were (dont get me wrong, they ARE behind, but everyone else is making up numbers that really don't match reality so it's pretty much only fair intel finally can do the same).

Well there was a calculation done on Intel's 10nm logic to be 100Mtr/mm^2 where the wikichips is based off, obviously thats only the densest part and not the entirety.

hexus.net/tech/news/cpu/119699-intel-10nm-density-27x-improved-14nm-node/

Did you post this article a day early?

I guess that's one way to "catch up"...

To be honest, they can name their nodes whatever they want. At the end of the day, people will just look at the density and efficiency of the node. For example, you can have a supposed 5nm, but actually fare no better than a 7nm, that will become apparent in product reviews. Right now, TSMC is leading and thus, not much to compare. If Intel joins the party late, it will be easier to scrutinize.

BwazeThank you, I haven't found the numbers I knew I read somewhere (estimations, there are no released specs).

Compared to the Intel promo material for 10nm it's quite a bit less dense:

The marketable numbers are always with the densest variant of the process node. Practically every manufacturing process has separate variants targeted towards density and performance. Performance variant usually has about 1/3 less transistors on the same area. The basic idea is more empty space between cells/transistors to allow higher voltages with lower leakage.

High Density variant is canonically used for mobile and other dies aiming at low power (and lower frequencies), High Performance variant are used - as the name says - high performance dies running at higher voltages, higher frequencies and higher power consumption.

Anandtech's 10nm Cannon Lake article laid out the Intel 10nm spec, scroll down to 'There's more to it' section - 100 MTr/mm² for High Density, 67 MTr/mm² for Ultra High Performance:
www.anandtech.com/show/13405/intel-10nm-cannon-lake-and-core-i3-8121u-deep-dive-review/3
This is not Intel-specific. The same applies to TSMC, with N7 official numbers at 96 MTr/mm² and high performance variant in the 65 MTr/mm² range. N7+/N7P/N6 should be 15-20% more dense.

All the official numbers are standard cells - or something more dense like SRAM if manufacturer wants to show even larger density numbers. The actual dies (like CPUs or GPUs) are usually less dense than that due to number of reasons. Logic circuitry does not lend well to being tightly packed together, there are areas like IO that do not scale down that well etc.

Vya DomusNah, it's still loosely related to the smallest feature size but changing the name of your node in hope that this will somehow make people like your products more is hilarious.

No, the node names are completely made up these days, they have absolutely no relationship with the smallest feature size or the design rules for the matter. The last node that had a name still (vaguely) related to the feature size was Intel's 32nm which had a gate length of 30nm. All node names after that - both from Intel and merchant foundries - are basically marketing names.

R-T-BThis. Basically intel was the only one using common sense node metrics, and it made them sound way more behind than they were (dont get me wrong, they ARE behind, but everyone else is making up numbers that really don't match reality so it's pretty much only fair intel finally can do the same).

Dunno, I think that going along with 'the rest' in twisting the truth, actually is a complete and utter loss of a moral high ground in business and eventually a race to the bottom. Intel is now the same filth in every possible way. Their 10nm being what it was, was a unique selling point and being fact-based about specs is just the same.

But it fits the trend of a loser: every gen you add a new nudge towards more misleading specs. Its what Intel has been doing since they abandoned their eternal quad core. Their introduction of a half dozen turbo states fits that category too. It was never about being helpful with more specs. Its about creating headroom by twisting reality. Meanwhile, it gets ever harder to keep an Intel CPU cool and thus performant.

If you're winning, your design and your product speaks for itself. Consider AMD's Zen. Right now, its never even about the node or whatever TDP It has and when it does, stuff either gets fixed or placed in perspective. Its just about the product: what do you get for your money and why is it better than most of everything else. The funny thing is, that discussion is also alive for Intel product... but no longer in their high end offerings, but the midrange and lower end. They're still competitive there - usually not even just 'situationally'. It reminds me of AMD's GPU stack not too long ago.

Basically more marketing is inversely proportional to a worse product. Its very refreshing to look at the market and its offers that way across the board, a pair of glasses I'm very fond of tbh, and it rarely proves to be wrong.

Side note: it'll be interesting what they'll do when they went small enough to run out of numbers, seeing as they're way ahead of reality in racing to the number 1 :)
Negative node sizes? -2nm? A rift in space and time? :ohwell: