HP: Based on our Intel, don't hold your breath waiting for Chipzilla's CPU shortage to end Intel was wrong, it seems. HP Inc, the world's second-largest PC maker, has forecast that Chipzilla's CPU shortages won't be over by anytime soon – not until at least the third quarter. The chip ship woes began last summer when Intel was caught out by rising demand from cloud providers and struggling to bring its already …
"Intel was wrong, it seems. HP Inc, the world's second-largest PC maker, has forecast that Chipzilla's CPU shortages won't be over by anytime soon – not until at least the third quarter."
Intel weren't wrong, they were just very economical with the truth. They pumped premium server chips for the revenue and until the market was "oversupplied" and then switched to premium desktop chips and will likely switch back again. All at 14nm naturally, as that process works.
Oh...you wanted low-mid range chips? Just pay a little more and we might make some more. Don't worry, it will all be OK once 10nm is online in Q2^H3^H4 because we'll definitely have everything sorted. Yes...we didn't specify a year....you caught us...
Look how amazing our EUV process is....mind waiting until 2021?
The real reason for Intel's 14nm shortage is obvious. Apple.
They probably made the deal with Apple to be their exclusive modem supplier a few years earlier, when they assumed they'd have 10nm in volume and 14nm fab space didn't matter. They were wrong, and producing a huge run of modem chips for iPhones was responsible for the shortages last year, which then eased a bit after they had enough to supply Apple through Q4 which is their busiest quarter.
Right now they are building a bunch for the next gen iPhone, but will once again be able to ease off thus Intel's prediction that the shortage will ease in Q3.
While Apple maybe part of the issue, the real issue is the head of the line blocking due to no sizeable 10nm volume. Historically, Intel used 2 fabs with 2 lines each to maintain volume for their leading edge fabs - no 19nm has meant bumping 14nm up to a third fab and hoping they can handle volumes by reducing defects as they shuffle older products onto newer processes to allow old fabs to be refurbished.
Having 5 fabs (2 x 10nm and 3 x 14nm) producing 60-70% of expected output because the 10nm fabs are almost unused causes problems...
And the problems with 10nm aren’t going away (10nm can do low power CPUs with builtin GPUs with bits disabled due to defects in about double the time it takes on 14nm....meaning low value parts produced slowly).
Will constraints disappear in 2019? If AMDs Rome is good and the PCIe 4.0 IO bump for storage and ML pushes Intel, they’ll need 14nm capacity for chipsets that are stuck on 22nm. Or a miracle at 10nm.
It's okay HP, I'm sure Intel will keep spitting out plenty of Itantium CPUs for you...
HP had the BEST support archive around, until the HPE split. Now you can't hardly download drivers for HPE equipment without a support contract. HP keeps shooting themselves in the feet, Dell wins by default. It's sad, really.
HP had the BEST support archive around ...
I assume you are talking about business support, not the consumer division, they have always had a hellish support. I still remember when I bought a laptop and the seller gave me by mistake the id for the warranty extension of a Compaq product (they already owned it for several years), when I tried to register the warranty the online tool returned a generic message:"system error" and they took three months to find out the issue. When I told them that in the meantime I relocated and I couldn't go back to the seller to get a new warranty they replied that in this case it was not their problem and they refused to do anything, money lost.
With HP selling Epyc CPU powered systems because Intel was unable to compete or supply 10Nm CPUs probably didn't help improve the supply of Intel CPUs. HP's poor customer support and another round of defective laptop batteries is also likely to hurt their sales as they just don't seem to be able to understand the consumer market. Our company stopped buying HP laser printers due to their lack of reliability. The lights might be on at HP but it's difficult to tell if anyone is actually at home.
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