Re: Is Intel exceptionally unsuccessful as an architecture designer?

On Sat, 14 Sep 2024 22:49:21 +0000
mitchalsup@aol.com (MitchAlsup1) wrote:

On Sat, 14 Sep 2024 21:06:39 +0000, Michael S wrote:
 

On Sat, 14 Sep 2024 07:29:02 GMT
anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) wrote:
 

>
It seems to me that IA-64 was a bigger failure: More money
invested, and more money lost (probably even relative to the size
of the company at the time).
>
- anton 

>
But more money made, too.
I'd suppose, in its later days, when all ambitions evaporated,
Itanium became a decent cache cow for Intel. Not spectacular, of
course, just decent. 

 
I do not believe that the sales revenue even met the engineering and
manufacturing costs.
 

ASP was certainly many time higher than manufacturing cost, esp. after
migration to 90nm in 2006.
Engineering cost was huge up until 2010, but significant part of what
was spent in 2005-2010 (development of QPI) was reused by Xeons.
In 2010-2012 engineering cost was probably quite moderate.
From 2013 to EOL in 2022 engineering cost was very low.
So, even if Itanium  enterprise as whole lost a lot of money its
last 12-13 years taken in isolation were likely quite profitable.