What Products Use Intel 10nm? SuperFin and 10++ Demystified
by Dr. Ian Cutress on September 25, 2020 9:00 AM ESTThe AnandTech Decoder Ring for Intel 10nm
The reason why I’m writing about this topic is because it is all a bit of a mess. Intel is a company so large, with many different business units each with its own engineers and internal marketing personnel/product managers, that a single change made by the HQ team takes time to filter down to the other PR teams, but also filter back through the engineers, some of which make press-facing appearances. That’s before any discussions as to whether the change is seen as positive or negative by those affected.
I reached out to Intel to get their official decoder ring for the 10++ to new SuperFin naming. The official response I received was in itself confusing, and the marketing person I speak to wasn’t decoding from the first 2018 naming change, but from the original pre-2017 naming scheme. Between my contacts and I we spoke over the phone so I could hear what they wanted to tell me and so I could tell them what I felt were the reasons for the changes. Some of the explanations I made (such as Intel not wanting to acknowledge Ice Lake 10nm is different to Cannon Lake 10nm, or that Ice Lake 10nm is called that way to hide the fact that Cannon Lake 10nm didn’t work) were understandably left with a no comment.
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.
Moving forward, Intel’s communications team is committed to explaining everything in terms of 10nm, 10SF, and 10ESF. I have been told that the process of moving all internal documents away from the pre-2017 naming to the 2020 naming is already underway.
We reached out for Intel for a comment for this article:
It is widely acknowledged within the industry that there is inconsistency and confusion in [our] nanometer nomenclature. Going forward, we will refer the next generation 10nm products as 10nm SuperFin technology-based products.
My take is that whoever had the bright idea to knock Ice Lake down from 10+ to 10 (and then Tiger from 10++ to 10+ etc.), in order to protect the company from addressing issues with the Cannon Lake product, drastically failed at predicting the fallout that this name change would bring. Sometimes a company should accept they didn't score as well as they did, admit the hit, and move on, rather than try and cover it up. So much more time and effort has been lost in terms of communications between the press and Intel, or the press and engineers, or even between the engineers and Intel's own communications team. Even the basic understanding of dealing with that change has been difficult, to the detriment of the press trying to report on Intel’s technology, and likely even on the financial side as investors try to understand what’s going on.
But, truth be told, I’m glad that Intel moved away from the ++++ nomenclature. It allows the company to now easily name future manufacturing node technologies that aren’t just for pure logic performance, which may be vital if Intel ever wants to become a foundry player again.
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michael2k - Saturday, September 26, 2020 - link
And it will be competing against the 2nd generation 3080.Spunjji - Monday, September 28, 2020 - link
2nd generation 3080? What's that supposed to be? If you're talking about the variant with 20GB RAM, that's hardly "second gen" and people are going to be very disappointed when they realise how pointless it is to have so much VRAM at this point in time.Overall I'm loving the idea that we shouldn't believe RDNA 2 will release this year despite the evidence to the contrary, and that it'll be terrible despite evidence to the contrary, but that we should believe there will be a "2nd generation 3080" despite there being *no* evidence in favour of such an assertion. Classic FUD.
wumpus - Monday, September 28, 2020 - link
It was a mistake for most consumers to buy Turing. Jensen even admitted that with the "it's safe to upgrade from Pascal now" bit.No idea if "Vega VII" was a mistake for AMD, but it was what very few consumers needed.
Operandi - Friday, September 25, 2020 - link
I think the best thing for the market is for Intel to take a bit more of a beating. Intel was complacent and/or they had run of real engineering problems (probably a bit of both) and AMD came back with a great CPU design but AMD's market position is still pretty weak. Intel still pushes the OEMs around in the server and notebook market. Its apparent in the product stacks but what is less apparent is whatever deals are happening behind closed doors."Cutting deals" of varying degrees of legitness and shadiness are always going to exist but the asymmetrical nature of AMD and Intel's position in the market in terms of capacity and capital make the market inherently unhealthy. It dosn't need to be 50/50 market share but I think Intel still needs to be taken down a peg or two so AMD can position itself (and the market along with) for the long term.
Spunjji - Friday, September 25, 2020 - link
Have to agree. I see Intel voluntarily bloodletting and find it hard to see that as anything other than overdue consequences for their corporate mentality.wumpus - Monday, September 28, 2020 - link
I'm not sure how much Intel can push OEMs around in the server room after AMD could supply the chips and Intel couldn't. Also the really big boys (AWS/Google/MS) don't need the OEMs, and AMD is getting in there.It looks like their old tricks are working just fine in the notebook market, although this is the first generation that AMD has really tried to crack it. OEM's might just think it isn't worth annoying Intel until AMD can get a few generations shipping.
wolfesteinabhi - Friday, September 25, 2020 - link
we can now officially say "14nm" instead of +ThumbsUp+ here on Anandtech now. .... who needs an outdated like icon anyhow!!Hifihedgehog - Friday, September 25, 2020 - link
14nmsharathc - Friday, September 25, 2020 - link
Intel is demeaning the symbol of '+'jbwhite1999 - Friday, September 25, 2020 - link
25 years ago this fall, Intel had a problem with multiplication of large numbers, so in essence, they have experience demeaning math like "+"