英特尔IDF叫板苹果，生态系统之争已形成

上周，电子产业相当热闹，英特尔开发者论坛 (Intel Developer Forum, IDF) 和苹果 (Apple) 的 iPhone 5发表会选在同一时间举办。两大活动都令人印象深刻，但我也不禁担心，业界两大龙头的电子生态系统是否已经处于短兵相接的紧张态势了。 我在Moscone West搭乘电扶梯时巧遇了 Dave Ditzel。他曾经是升阳计算机 (Sun Microsystems)两代 Sparc 芯片的设计师，现在则为英特尔这家PC巨擘设计新一代处理器。 Dave说，他对英特尔长而深的微处理器管线开发项目，以及有条不紊的复杂而大量的生产制程印象深刻。我也有同感。 在我们谈话的同时， Invensas 的首席技术官刚好经过，他认识Dave，旋即加入了谈话。当他从口袋中掏出该公司采用最新3D堆栈技术开发的原型产品的那一刻，我感觉到我彷佛站在未来芯片设计的原爆点(Ground Zero)。 而当我进场聆听英特尔的 Mark Bohr 阐述该公司的制程技术蓝图时，我又有了相同的感觉。Bohr在芯片制造领域拥有30年经验，他无疑是当代少数制程技术的先驱之一。他的演讲内容不仅包含英特尔下一代14nm制程，还包括了再下一代的 10nm 制程。整个电子产业，几乎都仰赖像他这样的先锋来推进。 然而，在英特尔的航行路线中，却也横亘着若干冰山。用于下一世代芯片的微影技术看起来在我们到达原子级微缩极限时仍然无法就绪。即使是英特尔，未来也很可能无法再维持每两年即推进到新一代制程的速度了。 接下来，一切都和移动息息相关。是的，英特尔的 Atom SoC 现已用在六款普通的智能手机，以及另外四款颇受人瞩目的 Windows 8 平板计算机中。但苹果的 iPhone 和 Samsung 领军的 Android 装置，早已各拿下移动市场的半壁江山。 本文授权编译自EE Times，版权所有，谢绝转载 本文下一页：触礁

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{pagination} 触礁 在 IDF 上，我并未感受到英特尔努力想成为 Andoird 市场领导者，而微软(Microsoft)则无疑并未领导移动软件。事实上，英特尔将重心放在了去塑造后PC时代强大的生态系统。 好消息是，英特尔仍然是PC市场以及目前概念仍然模糊的云端运算领域的核心公司。从事PCI和USB开发的Jim Pappas热情地对我分享了闪存将会如何改变计算机基础设施的编程方法，英特尔的目的是制作一个模型，并假设该模型能采用post-NAND且运作顺畅。 在此同时，苹果股价的上升幅度也略高于其它仅能做出单一款“me-too”手机的公司。新的 iPhone 5 也跟上了他的竞争对手过去一年来早已配备的多项元素── LTE 、更大的显示屏幕、更好的媒体能力，以及小型连接器。 去设计一个外表看来很体面，但在性能上却不顶尖的智能手机、平板电脑和笔记本电脑，是相当伟大的商业模式。因为这样做就能在热门技术稍稍冷却，性能趋于稳定且确定实用性之后，以最低风险的方式提供给消费者。 然而，苹果也有触礁的可能，Gartner的 Van Baker 指出，如果错失了一种产品的生命周期，就有可能在这一年内完全无法从该产品获得营收，更可能失去移动教主宝座。其它的风险还来自于软件堆栈的复杂程度、半导体和系统设计供应链，人才的专业程度等。Tim Cook应该做好万全准备。 上周两大业界盛事都震撼人心，只不过，当看到两艘巨型邮轮交错驶过旧金山Howard街时，还是有些令人心惊胆颤。 本文授权编译自EE Times，版权所有，谢绝转载 编译： Joy Teng 参考英文原文：Intel, Apple may be two ships passing in the light，by Rick Merritt

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{pagination} Intel, Apple may be two ships passing in the light Rick Merritt SAN FRANCISCO – It was a heady week hanging out the Intel Developer Forum and covering the iPhone 5 launch a block away. At the end of it all, I am both impressed and worried about the two big ecosystems of electronics that passed within spitting distance of each other. Riding the big escalators at Moscone West I saw Dave Ditzel. He designed a couple generations of Sparc chips at Sun Microsystems back in the day and now is working for Intel on a CPU beyond anything the PC giant is talking about publicly. [ARM TechCon 2012, the largest ARM design ecosystem under one roof, is Oct. 30 - Nov. 1 in Santa Clara. Click here to learn more] Dave said he was impressed by Intel’s long, deep pipeline of microprocessor projects and its methodical process for executing on such massively complex programs. Me, too. While we talked, the chief technologist of Invensas, who also knew Dave, chimed in, excitedly sharing a prototype in his pocket of the company’s latest 3-D stacking technology. For a moment I felt like I was standing at Ground Zero of the future of chip design. I had that feeling again listening to Mark Bohr present Intel’s process technology road map. Bohr’s been around the chip fabrication business for 30 years and unarguably is one of maybe a dozen people now at its vanguard. He talked with authority not only about Intel’s next generation 14-nm process but the 10-nm one beyond it. The whole electronics industry depends on pathfinders like him. There’s an iceberg field ahead of the big Intel cruise ship. The lithography methods used to create chips seem to be running out of gas as we approach the atomic limits of scaling. Even Intel may not be able to stay much longer on its heady two-year cadence for new processes. Then there’s the whole mobile thing. Yes, Intel’s Atom-based SoCs now power six run-of-the-mill smartphones and four compelling Windows 8 tablets. But Apple’s iPhone franchise (and the Android fleet led by Samsung) is steaming half an ocean ahead of it. Running aground I did not get a feeling at IDF that Intel is in the vanguard of Android, and Microsoft is certainly not leading the way in mobile software. Intel has its work cut out for itself navigating it’s way to a strong post-PC ecosystem. The good news is, it is still at the center of the PC and what people loosely call cloud computing. Jim Pappas, one of the guys who drove PCI and USB, enthusiastically told me about how flash memory will change the programming model of the compute infrastructure, a model Intel aims to author—if all goes well with the post-NAND generation. Meanwhile, Apple’s stock is rising on little more than the design of what amounts to a single, me-too phone. The iPhone 5 catches up with what its rivals have been delivering for a year—LTE, bigger displays, better media, smaller components like docking connectors. It’s a great business model: Design one decent, but not bleeding-edge smartphone, tablet and notebook a year. Give consumers something that’s arguably cool and useful, and avoid the risks of bleeding edge technology. Apple too could run aground, as Van Baker of Gartner pointed out to me in a chat at IDF. If it misses just once on one of its big annual product cycles, it could be hosed—losing a year of revenue, profits and panache as the company that sets mobile fashions. The risks are pretty big given the complexities in the software stack, the semiconductor and systems design chains and just plain human enterprise at this scale. Tim Cook, no doubt, buys Maalox by the case. At the end of the day, it was humbling—and just a bit frightening--to see these giant cruise ships pass so closely as they sailed down San Francisco’s Howard Street.