Re: Is Intel exceptionally unsuccessful as an architecture designer?

On Mon, 16 Sep 2024 23:48:56 +0000
mitchalsup@aol.com (MitchAlsup1) wrote:

On Sun, 15 Sep 2024 8:22:16 +0000, Michael S wrote:
 

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

 

>
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. 

 
Engineering costs were at least 200 engineers for 2 decades at
approximately $200K/engineer/year. ½ salary ½ SW+HW+overhead.
This turn out to be $0.8B sales costs would be extra.
>

Why would they need 200 engineers before 1998?
Or after 2010?
Why would they need more than 2-3 engineers after 2012?

Did they sell $1B of these things ??
 

I don't know, but would think that the answer is yes.

In the best years (2007-2008) HP sold approximately 75K Itanium boxen
per year. Assuming an average of 3 CPUs per box and 3.5K USD per CPU
that gives 0.79 B/y. For the rest of IPF life they were selling
significantly less, but still selling something.
And there were other vendors beyond HP, although nearly all of them
jumped ship before 2008.

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.