[Fool] Intel mobile gets another blow: Aicha Evans leaving

[witeken]

Report: Intel Corp.'s Mobile Chief Bails

Will that be the dead blow? Or will it take until 5G until Intel gets some return on its huge investment?

My analysis is that because Intel was desparate to cut losses by 0.8B to 1B per year, they had to stop investing in the business and now it's sitting somewhere in no man's land.

You have to choose Intel: invest in mobile and gain a lot of MSS. Or don't.

 

[poofyhairguy]

I think it's pretty smart for Intel to see the writing on the wall and to cut its losses.

 

[Doom2pro]

Good time for AMD to step in with their rich SoC IP... Question is do they have Modem IP or can they license it?

 

[Arachnotronic]

Good time for AMD to step in with their rich SoC IP... Question is do they have Modem IP or can they license it?

ROFL, are you suggesting that AMD build modems for Apple??

 

[Azuma Hazuki]

Let's be fair, the Mullins family is better than God-awful Bay Trail and, by extension, Cherry Trail. I wish I knew why the hell they were kept out; I'd much rather have an A10-Micro 6700T than, say, an Atom X7.

 

[NTMBK]

Good time for AMD to step in with their rich SoC IP... Question is do they have Modem IP or can they license it?

Going after mobile would be suicide for AMD. Intel has burnt billions on it, with nothing to show for their efforts. Nvidia has similarly struck out, buying and then having to write off Icera. Even companies which had successful mobile chip businesses like TI have walked away because the margins are too slim and competition too fierce.

Being squeezed between integrated manufacturers like Samsung, giants like Qualcomm and zero margin firms like Mediatek sounds like a death sentence for AMD.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Let's be fair, the Mullins family is better than God-awful Bay Trail and, by extension, Cherry Trail.

I feel like Atom cores get too much of the blame for Intel mobile failures. Yes they suck compared to big core, but back when they FIRST were competing in the mobile space (2011-2012) they were ahead of what ARM provided. The XOLO X900 blew away ARM phones on single core performance, the problem was the GPU was far far behind the top of the line phone SoCs of the time.

If Intel could have counted on its GPU division they maybe could have gotten some early design wins, but instead they had to lean on PowerVR GPUs (like EVERYONE else had) because their internal stuff couldn't cut it. THAT is what killed their chance in mobile.

People love to bash Atom, but the Intel GPU division has wasted WAY more money than Atom ever could. Hell, aren't those Knights Landing micro-cores or whatever they are based on the Atom?

 

[Phynaz]

Jim Keller leaves AMD - His work is done and Zen is great!

Aicha Evans leaves Intel - Intel is doomed in mobile!



In both cases the truth lies somewhere beneath the hype.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Jim Keller leaves AMD - His work is done and Zen is great!

Aicha Evans leaves Intel - Intel is doomed in mobile!



In both cases the truth lies somewhere beneath the hype.

Well, we dont really know why Keller left. Could be because Zen is great and he wanted to move on, could be it is bad and he got the boot, or most likely, he just wanted to move on because that is his style.

But I dont think anyone can reasonably say someone is leaving Intel's mobile division because the work is done and the products are great.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Jim Keller leaves AMD - His work is done and Zen is great!

Aicha Evans leaves Intel - Intel is doomed in mobile!

You do realize that many people assumed Keller's departure spelled doom for Zen, right?

 

[Phynaz]

Good time for AMD to step in with their rich SoC IP... Question is do they have Modem IP or can they license it?

In one of the largest business blunders of all time AMD sold its handset division to Qualcomm for mere $65M.

That same division now makes Qualcomm billions in revenue.

 

[Sweepr]

Let's be fair, the Mullins family is better than God-awful Bay Trail and, by extension, Cherry Trail. I wish I knew why the hell they were kept out; I'd much rather have an A10-Micro 6700T than, say, an Atom X7.

Not really. This is the fastest Mullins, other models are significantly slower. And Atom x5/x7 still delivers similar CPU/iGPU performance to the A10 6700T in smaller form factors.

 

[Phynaz]

You do realize that many people assumed Keller's departure spelled doom for Zen, right?

Yes, I'm making fun of the hype on both sides.

 

[poofyhairguy]

In one of the largest business blunders of all time AMD sold its handset division to Qualcomm for mere $65M.

It wasn't the whole product though, it was just the GPU portion of a Qualcomm SoC (what they call Adreno).

I don't think anyone would argue GPUs are what made Qualcomm SoCs so dominant. It is there LTE radios that give them an edge.

 

[Dresdenboy]

Jim Keller leaves AMD - His work is done and Zen is great!

Aicha Evans leaves Intel - Intel is doomed in mobile!



In both cases the truth lies somewhere beneath the hype.

I remember lots of people saying the likes, that Keller's departure casts doom on Zen and K12.

Business as usual.

Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) says that Doug Davis, the general manager of the Internet of Things unit, is leaving after 32 years with the company. Davis will retire at the end of 2016

Intel also says Kirk Skaugen, senior VP in its Client Computing Group, is leaving the company for a new career opportunity elsewhere.

http://seekingalpha.com/news/3171354-veteran-intel-execs-davis-skaugen-depart

This could be twisted into Zen being that bad, that Skaugen didn't see some interesting and demanding fight ahead. 😉

 

[ElFenix]

Good time for AMD to step in with their rich SoC IP... Question is do they have Modem IP or can they license it?

why would AMD want to do that?

Jim Keller leaves AMD - His work is done and Zen is great!

Aicha Evans leaves Intel - Intel is doomed in mobile!



In both cases the truth lies somewhere beneath the hype.

you just can't help yourself, can you?

 

[AtenRa]

Going after mobile would be suicide for AMD. Intel has burnt billions on it, with nothing to show for their efforts. Nvidia has similarly struck out, buying and then having to write off Icera. Even companies which had successful mobile chip businesses like TI have walked away because the margins are too slim and competition too fierce.

Being squeezed between integrated manufacturers like Samsung, giants like Qualcomm and zero margin firms like Mediatek sounds like a death sentence for AMD.

I still believe there is a huge opportunity for x86 in mobile. Just not in cheap android phones/tablets but for high-end win 10 devices. Both AMD and Intel could create a huge market in that segment but Intel wanted something not meant for them, they got burned and destroyed AMDs mobile plans with them.

 

[Phynaz]

I still believe there is a huge opportunity for x86 in mobile. Just not in cheap android phones/tablets but for high-end win 10 devices. Both AMD and Intel could create a huge market in that segment but Intel wanted something not meant for them, they got burned and destroyed AMDs mobile plans with them.

It's never AMD's fault 😀

 

[AtenRa]

This could be twisted into Zen being that bad, that Skaugen didn't see some interesting and demanding fight ahead. 😉

lol

 

[AtenRa]

It's never AMD's fault 😀

When you have a Gorilla spending Billions its one of those moments that clearly was not AMDs fault.

 

[cbn]

I still believe there is a huge opportunity for x86 in mobile. Just not in cheap android phones/tablets but for high-end win 10 devices.

Nice thing about x86 is that (unlike ARM) it is a standardized platform.

This means, unlike ARM, we should be able to update our OSes like we do our PCs. This should make for a much more secure system for those keeping their phones long term.

Its too bad most consumers (especially non enthusiast ones) wouldn't even realize this when factoring in their buying decision....and yet it is so important.

 

[Exophase]

I feel like Atom cores get too much of the blame for Intel mobile failures. Yes they suck compared to big core, but back when they FIRST were competing in the mobile space (2011-2012) they were ahead of what ARM provided. The XOLO X900 blew away ARM phones on single core performance, the problem was the GPU was far far behind the top of the line phone SoCs of the time.

If Intel could have counted on its GPU division they maybe could have gotten some early design wins, but instead they had to lean on PowerVR GPUs (like EVERYONE else had) because their internal stuff couldn't cut it. THAT is what killed their chance in mobile.

People love to bash Atom, but the Intel GPU division has wasted WAY more money than Atom ever could. Hell, aren't those Knights Landing micro-cores or whatever they are based on the Atom?

Man I don't know.. I stuck up for Saltwell being not-that-bad when people bashed it but I also put it down as not-that-amazing when people said things like that. At the time a lot of benchmarks being ran were really x86 friendly so it looked spectacular in reviews. Then there was that big AnTuTu stunt that even got an Intel-sponsored "analysis" written to show how utterly incredible Saltwell was.

This was especially true in Javascript benchmarks where ARM code generation in Chrome was still behind (and in some ways maybe still is, look at Chrome vs Safari). This in particular says a lot:

http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph8560/67833.png

First came Samsung Galaxy S4, April 2013, 1.6GHz Cortex-A15, 1183 in Sunspider. Then came Huawei Honor 6 August 2014, 1.7GHz Cortex-A15, delivered 645.

In actual real world programs that were decently optimized about the same for ARM and x86 Saltwell was a little behind Cortex-A9 and Krait in perf/MHz while offering similar MHz to Krait (and a little more than A9s) so I don't think it really blew away ARM phones in single core performance. And then there was the whole matter of relying on binary translation for Android apps that didn't support x86 natively, something which destroyed performance. Intel brushed this off by saying ~80% of Android apps didn't even use the NDK, but that was certainly not the case when weighted by app popularity.

Also, Medfield was single-core with HT while ARM phones were already quad-core. So in anything even moderately threaded it hurt pretty badly.

GPU-wise I fully blame Intel, not PowerVR. For a long time Intel chose very very small/conservative GPU offerings. When Apple used PowerVR GPUs of the same generation they went with much more robust configurations and smoked Intel.

 

[Arachnotronic]

Well, we dont really know why Keller left. Could be because Zen is great and he wanted to move on, could be it is bad and he got the boot, or most likely, he just wanted to move on because that is his style.

But I dont think anyone can reasonably say someone is leaving Intel's mobile division because the work is done and the products are great.

Keller was literally telling audiences of people that if they wanted to work on high performance MPU design, AMD was the best place in the industry to work. About a year later, he was gone.

I don't think it's "his style" to just up and leave, especially when the getting is good. This is just a fantasy peddled by AMD boosters (and from what I've been told privately, what AMD's PR department was feeding to the press just before the announcement, FWIW) to justify the loss of an executive that they hailed as the second coming.

 

[Adored]

Keller was literally telling audiences of people that if they wanted to work on high performance MPU design, AMD was the best place in the industry to work. About a year later, he was gone.

I don't think it's "his style" to just up and leave, especially when the getting is good. This is just a fantasy peddled by AMD boosters (and from what I've been told privately, what AMD's PR department was feeding to the press just before the announcement, FWIW) to justify the loss of an executive that they hailed as the second coming.

Right, he's only worked at 8 companies in 18 years. Wonder how many loyalty bonuses he's picked up in all that. 😵

 

[Phynaz]

Right, he's only worked at 8 companies in 18 years. Wonder how many loyalty bonuses he's picked up in all that. 😵

At an average tenure of 2 years per company he would have never completed a CPU.