Thoughts on Intel software-defined silicon
Some of the LWN comments suggest this is similar to previous&#x2F;existing gating of features being fused off for example or only some cores being enabled. I think this looks very significantly worse for multiple reasons though. While clearly much of it is pure segmentation for pricing, fusing features&#x2F;cores can have genuine yield justification too. If some silicon is simply off for good then it doesn&#x27;t need to work let alone be stable, so if testing reveals defects that can be a reasonable way to salvage a chip. That the lower probability and thus lower count defect free chips would cost more made sense. And fusing also at least requires commitment: once done, the chip is permanently less valuable, which is at least some check on overly aggressive artificial monetization.<p>The perverse incentives here seem a ton worse. There is direct incentive to be very aggressive with it, because even if they get the balance wrong they can adjust it later and employ all the marketing stuff done with software (50% off sale on vector math acceleration 2 days only!). It&#x27;ll by definition always be used with features that the chips are fully capable of and thus even further pushes towards tiering capabilities without any connection to yield. The centralized control requirements moving further into underlying hardware are concerning as well from a redundancy and security perspective. I&#x27;m a big believer in businesses following the incentive tracks they create long term, for better and for worse. With this development, Intel&#x27;s are diverging further from their customers&#x27;.<p>About the best that can be said is that at least the market now is a lot more competitive. Between Intel&#x27;s fab woes, TSMC, AMD and both Arm and burgeoning RISC-V efforts, Intel is more on than I think they&#x27;ve been in a very long time. Maybe ever? Which does make it all the more curious to me why they&#x27;re trying this now of all times. Seems like 5-7 years ago they&#x27;d have really has us. Now though it&#x27;s just another thing in strong competitors favor. The end of a lot of core x86-64 patents is starting to kick off too. Or maybe Intel thinks this will let them do sticker prices that are drastically lower and thus look better vs AMD et al even as they can still extract more money in the end? It&#x27;s worrying. In fact now that I think more on it, Intel weakening but using this brings its <i>own</i> extra worries. If they feel the need (or are forced) to juice returns for shareholders and themselves down the road if their competitiveness falters, or even if they regain dominance, they will have an installed base with a capability to squeeze it.