英特尔：别胡说，我不会放弃10nm

基于最近英特尔推迟了其10nm工艺的量产时间，有媒体撰文表示英特尔很可能直接砍掉全部10nm产品组合直接跳到7nm工艺的产品开发上，同时降低成本。

这一推断很不靠谱，理由如下：就算重新修订10nm工艺的时间表，英特尔也不会丢了这块市场。因为根据英特尔的预期，其第一代10nm产品，代号Cannonlake将在2017年下半年实现量产，而这和其竞争对手能提供10nm工艺产品的时间点相差不多。

In light of Intel's (NASDAQ:INTC) recent delay of products built on its upcoming 10-nanometer manufacturing technology, SemiWiki's Daniel Nenni speculates that the chip giant might ax its 10-nanometer product portfolio altogether and refocus those efforts on bringing out the 7-nanometer technology node while at the same time cutting costs.

This course of action seems highly unlikely. Here's why.

Intel probably won't lose its lead even with this 10-nanometer launch schedule
According to Intel, its first 10-nanometer products, code-named Cannonlake, should arrive in high volumes during the second half of 2017. This is around the time that one would reasonably expect 10-nanometer product from Intel's foundry competitors to hit the market.

Remember that Intel beat Samsung to shipping 14-nanometer product into the market by six months (and I would argue that Intel's "14-nanometer" is ahead of Samsung's "14-nanometer" technology) and it beat semiconductor foundry giant TSMC by about a year.

Although TSMC and Samsung claim that they will go into volume production on their respective 10-nanometer technologies by the end of 2016, I'm not convinced that if Intel is having such difficulties with its 10-nanometer technology that the foundries will have such an easy time getting there.

Skipping 10-nanometer would require a significant product pipeline flush
Intel engineers have been designing processors on the upcoming 10-nanometer technology for quite some time. These designs SPAN everything from ultra-mobile applications processors to server processors . If Intel were to simply "skip" the 10-nanometer node, then it would have to flush years of product development down the proverbial drain.

Nenni suggests that in the interim period between its current 14-nanometer process and the 7-nanometer process, it could roll an improved 14-nanometer process technology. However, Intel would still need to bring its new architectures -- which the company has been designing on the 10-nanometer node -- to the 14-nanometer node.

Node-skipping would have significant negative economic implications
It's worth pointing out that one of the reasons that Intel focuses so much on trying to reduce the effective cost-per-transistor of its manufacturing technologies is so that it can add more functionality (which ultimately require more transistors) to its chips while keeping its cost structure on the chips intact.

If Intel were to put out an "enhanced" 14-nanometer technology, it might be able to deliver better performance through an improved transistor architecture, but it likely wouldn't be able to deliver a material chip area reduction.

Now, Intel is obviously bringing out a third 14-nanometer product family in 2016, code-named Kaby Lake, which will likely include a greater number of transistors than the 2015 Skylake parts. However, Intel will likely be limited in the incremental chip area it can dedicate to increased functionality in Kaby Lake as a result of the use of the same 14-nanometer manufacturing technology.

At any rate, if Intel can get its yields at 10-nanometers under control (which it should by the time Cannonlake launches), then going ahead