CES: We Are Not Conservative

From January 11 to 14, CES consumer electronics show kicked off 2021's science and technology industry. In addition to terminal products such as robots, wearable devices and future TVs, core chip manufacturers have also launched an arms race for a new generation of processors.

Among them, Intel launched four new processor families at the CES conference, mainly for business, education, mobile and game computing, involving more than 50 processor products, and will launch more than 500 new notebook computers and desktop computers in 2021. Among them are the 11th generation of core s series desktop processor (code named "rocket lake-s") and its next generation processor (code named "alder Lake"), which Intel CEO Bob Swan said represents a major breakthrough in the x86 architecture.

At the same time, Intel also announced the mass production of 10 nm server processor in the first quarter of this year, and will build a self driving car lidar system integrated chip (SOC) for Mobileye, which is planned to be commercially available in 2025.

On the other hand, AMD, an old rival, has also released a number of processor chips for PCs and data centers. First of all, ryzen 5000, the mobile terminal for PCs, has also launched the server chip, the third generation epyc (Xiaolong), code named Milan, based on Zen 3 architecture; NVIDIA has released the desktop graphics card RTX 3060 and the mobile terminal graphics card RTX 30 series - 3060, 3070 and 3080 models, which also means that its ampere architecture has entered the mobile field; Qualcomm has released the second generation of ultrasonic fingerprint detector under the screen.

The giants are further upgrading their product lines to demonstrate their strongest computing power. In the face of the soaring PC market, rapidly changing mobile market and growing data center, AI and other markets under the epidemic situation, Intel and other chip manufacturers will continue to compete in various fields to compete for the strength of computing power platform.

PC and server market continue to compete for supremacy

In the past year, Intel has faced a lot of noise from the market value to the pace of mass production. Although the competitors are fierce, at present, in the field of PC processor and server chip, Intel still maintains the leading market share.

"Intel is moving forward in a more flexible way because we are not conservative, and we have unlimited opportunities for growth and innovation," Mr. sribe said in an interview with reporters during ces. "In the past five years, our revenue has increased by $20 billion, but we still have a lot of work to do in the future. In fact, in the past few years, our capacity has doubled, and after entering 2021, the capacity of 14nm and 10nm will be greatly increased. "

In the face of fierce competition, on the one hand, Intel made efforts to consolidate the PC market, which can be described as a heavy blow, and launched new products in various segments.

In the field of business, Intel has launched the 11th generation of Bray platform, which adopts Intel's 10 nm superfin technology, which is specially designed for light and thin notebook computers; in the field of education, Intel has launched the N-series 10 nm Pentium silver brand and Celeron processor; in the mobile and game fields, Intel has launched the 11th generation core high-performance mobile processor; in addition, Intel has also launched the 11th generation core high-performance mobile processor It shows the next generation processor "alder Lake", which will become Intel's first processor based on the new enhanced 10 nm superfin technology.

In fact, since 2020, the "cool" PC market has become more and more lively in terms of chip supply and demand. In addition to AMD's catching up, and the intrusion of Apple's M1 chip, Intel needs to defend and break through. In 2020, Intel announced a new architecture and a series of updates, and continued to implement the mass production plan in 2021.

At the same time, the hot demand of PC market has brought new increment. According to the preliminary results of IDC's global quarterly personal computing device tracking report, in 2020, the global PC market will ship more than 300 million units, with a year-on-year growth of 13.1%, a new high in recent years.

Li Yayu, a senior it analyst at sigmaitell, told the 21st century economic reporter that "the laptop market will see stronger performance. According to the data from the group intelligence consulting, the global total pen machine market will be close to 210 million units in 2020, with a year-on-year increase of 24%. From the perspective of the global total pen machine market shipment amount, our calculation also reaches With a year-on-year growth of 24%, the scale of China's pen market has increased by 10%

It can also be seen that manufacturers have strengthened the data support of PC and mobile terminals this year. The scale of digital economy brought by online cloud work and cloud entertainment also makes the competition among giants such as Intel, AMD, NVIDIA and apple more fierce.

On the other hand, in the server chip market, Intel announced that the third-generation Xeon scalable processor (code named "ice lake") which has started production recently will achieve mass production in the first quarter of 2021. Intel's 10 nanometer Xeon scalable processor's main architecture and platform level innovation can improve the performance, security and operational efficiency of the data center, while the vast blue ocean of the data center is needless to say.

Whether it is the PC or server market, Intel began to move towards 10 nanometers in a large scale, and the competitors in the same competition are also rubbing their hands.

Increase outsourcing of chip OEM?

At present, chip manufacturers are also faced with the problem of insufficient capacity in the industrial chain. Some processors such as Intel and AMD are in short supply. On the one hand, each company cooperates with TSMC to produce chips on its behalf. On the other hand, Intel also has OEM business. How to better arrange capacity and maintain the advantages of IDM integration mode, It is also a topic of concern to the outside world. By the end of 2020, Intel has released the signal that it may increase the outsourcing of OEM.

At some point in the future, will Intel use other companies' processes in production? In this regard, Si Ruibo once again responded: "it is not impossible. I think from a strategic point of view, there is no doubt that the ecosystem has made great progress and development in the past decade. If we have the opportunity and way to take advantage of some of the innovation and progress in the industry, technology should be the top priority among them. "

"Intel alone can't do all the innovation, which means we may outsource more work, we may take advantage of more third-party intellectual property rights, and we will produce wafers for other customers, not just for ourselves," he added. Is it possible for us to make use of other company's process under certain circumstances? I think it's possible. "

On January 13, the semiconductor research office of trendforce Group Consulting said that about 15-20% of Intel's non CPU IC manufacturing is outsourced, mainly in TSMC and UMC. In 2021, we are going to release the core I3 CPU products into TSMC's 5nm, and mass production is expected to start in the second half of the year. In addition, in the medium and long term, it is planned to contract out medium and high-level CPU products, and it is expected to start mass production of 3-nm related products in TSMC in the second half of 2022.

In recent years, due to the delay of mass production of 10 nm and 7 nm technology, Intel's market competitiveness has been affected, and its competitors have been moving towards 7 nm and 5 nm. According to Intel's plan, it is expected that the first 7Nm product will be launched in the second half of 2022 or early 2023. Now, the transition to 10 nm product is accelerating. However, an industry analyst told the 21st century economic news reporter that in fact, Intel's own 10 nm processor can be equivalent to TSMC's 7Nm product. However, the competition is still fierce. 5nm, 3nm and 2nm are all in the process. TSMC is also expanding its 5nm capacity. Intel is also investing heavily in bottom-level R & D and innovation.

According to Jibang consulting, Intel's outsourcing of product line expansion can not only maintain the original IDM mode, but also maintain high margin self-development production line and appropriate capital expenditure. At the same time, relying on TSMC's full range of wafer foundry services, plus the integration of Chiplets, wafer level packaging (cowos), integrated fan-out packaging (info), and system integrated chip (SOIC), etc Packaging technology advantages. In addition to cooperating with TSMC in existing product lines, there are more choices for product manufacturing.

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