In reality it literally is as simple as “intel says it’s 7nm so it’s 7nm”, but density is what determines the node number, insofar as anything determines it beyond marketing.
So, if intel 7 is a 10nm class node then so is tsmc N7. But the whole industry cooked their node names a decade ago and intel is allowed to do the same terminology. To do anything otherwise would be a needless marketing disadvantage. If someone’s cheating on marketing, everyone has to - and the reality was everyone but intel was already cheating.
This, but also if we took it at face value (we shouldn't for the reasons in the reply above), then this means Intel is even further ahead when adjusting for the difference in node sizes.
i.e. This would mean Intel will be getting a four-node-scale jump in performance (10nm->7nm->5nm->3nm->1.8nm) from where they are with Raptor Lake by 2025 if they can stay on track.
I don't have any insight into this but I would hope Pat Geslinger is righting the salary, perks and incentive structure as a matter of priority to stop the shedding of talent.
> I don't have any insight into this but I would hope Pat Geslinger is righting the salary, perks and incentive structure as a matter of priority to stop the shedding of talent.
Absolutely not and this is one of the strongest headwinds intel faces. They just did a big round of layoffs and then everyone who didn’t get cut got a surprise 20% pay cut after, and retention bonuses for seniors was typically low-3-digits to high-2-digits. Principle engineers were solidly 3 digits though. And then they did stock buybacks that exceeded the size of the layoffs and pay cuts.
Intel is fucking broke and they’re gonna have to cut every cost they can to focus on their key markets, and do it with personnel that were already underpaid and have better opportunities elsewhere. Not that labor is the straw that’s breaking intel’s back here but the situation is really AMD-in-2012 level dire, they have an incredibly long and expensive road to return to profitability and they will have to do it with whatever they can scrape up out of a staff that was already abused even in the “good times”.
Oh and they want you to move from desirable west-coast locations (well, except Arizona) to Ohio. And they’re massively behind on their tech stack (fighting uphill is not what everyone wants) in a failing org with a ton of middle-management rot and neglect. And they’re still failing to execute a huge amount of the time, causing massive delays, etc.
It’s really really dire and just because intel has staunched the worst of the financial bleeding doesn’t mean there’s much light at the end of the tunnel. Like Boeing I don’t think they will be allowed to go under, they’re strategically too important, but they’re gonna have a bad time for a while and probably legitimately do need a bunch of subsidy and “pity contracts” for national labs HPC computers to stay on their feet - just like AMD did.
Hot, literal desert in the climate change era with few local water supplies and powerful stakeholders with river water rights, mediocre politics in an unstable era, not really a tech hotspot outside TSMC/Intel. It's not awful but it's not folsom or hillsboro or seattle, it's kind of ohio-lite (with slightly less culture wars, but much worse water problems).
(oh and to be clear by "2 to 3 digits" I don't mean 10-999% bonus... I mean they gave senior engineers a $75-125 retention bonus and principals might get 2 or 3 hundred. Those are the people who will build Intel's next foundational architectures and the nodes and the packaging technologies that lead themselves and their foundry customers to success. Have fun with that.)
So, if intel 7 is a 10nm class node then so is tsmc N7. But the whole industry cooked their node names a decade ago and intel is allowed to do the same terminology. To do anything otherwise would be a needless marketing disadvantage. If someone’s cheating on marketing, everyone has to - and the reality was everyone but intel was already cheating.