01 | Intel Memory, ST SiC和波音737 Max

DANI RABIN: This is Dani Rabin from Marbin,and you're listening to EETimes On Air.

（DANI RABIN：这是来自Marbin的Dani Rabin，你正在收听的是EETimes On Air。）

DAVID FINCH: This is your EETimes Weekly Briefing. Today is Friday, April 5th.

（DAVID FINCH：这是EETimes每周简报。今天是4月5日，星期五。）

Among the top stories this week: Intel’s new memory architecture; an exclusive interview with Greg Travis – a veteran software engineer and instrument-rated pilot. We ask him if Boeing 737 Max MCAS software can be fixed. We also look at STMicroelectronics’ strategic priority on silicon carbide; and how the risk-averse business mentality is making Japan’s car OEMs slow to embrace the global auto market’s shifting focus on mobility services.

本周头条新闻故事包括：英特尔的新内存架构; 对Greg Travis的独家采访--一位经验丰富的软件工程师和经过专业训练的飞行员。我们问他波音737 Max MCAS软件是否可以修复;我们还要看看意法半导体在碳化硅方面的战略重点;以及规避风险的商业心态如何使日本的汽车制造商在全球汽车市场向移动服务的转变中步履缓慢。

以下内容为英文原文，无中文翻译。

JUNKO YOSHIDA: Japanese corporations are willing to flock together into a big group,but not because they are willing to work hard together. They do so because they don't want to take big risks.

DAVID FINCH: All that to come. But first, we begin with a story from our EETimes Silicon Valley Bureau.

Junko Yoshida, global editor-in-chief of AspenCore Media, asks Silicon Valley Bureau Chief Rick Merritt about his recent visit to Hillsboro, Oregon for Intel’s briefings.

JUNKO YOSHIDA: Hi, Rick. So you posted two stories this week about Intel, which I assume came out of your recent visit to Hillsboro, Oregon. Give us the rundown of new stuff they unveiled.

RICK MERRITT: Hi, Junko. So what Intel is doing today, or this week, is rolling out a whole slue of its data center chips. 40+ new Xeons, its first 10 nanometer FPGA, which I think is the most interesting part of the deal. And Optane memories on DIMMs for the first time. This is all chips that go into Intel's strongest and most profitable growth market. So it's really important for the company.

JUNKO YOSHIDA: What does Intel’s new memory architecture entail? Why does the industry need it, and what are the challenges?

RICK MERRITT: The memory part of this announcement was really interesting, because we've been following this Optane-- used to be called 3D Xpoint memory for goingon five years now, and there's been a lot of interest in it because Intelbilled is as the first new memory architecture next to DRAM and NAND in decades. Unfortunately, as it turns out, you gotta do a lot of work to bring that into a DIMM, and Intel did that work, including a lot of the software work. But it's still going to only be available on select applications where the software is in place. And frankly, the performance benefits weren't overwhelming to anyone. They were interesting but relatively modest in the sort of range of 30, 40% kind of benefits, although it's a complex performance story because it varies a lot with every different kind of application. And there's maybe a half a dozen that Intel is still kind of sorting through right now.

And unfortunately, the chips come at a time when the DRAM market is tanking. The prices are going down, so the price difference that Intel hoped to make a difference with here with Optane memory just isn't going to be there for them.

So one of the analysts I talked to said, back in 2015 when this was first announced, he projected that if all goes really well for Intel, they could make$2 billion in the first two years of rolling this stuff out. Optane DIMMS. Now he says, given the changing dynamics and the new performance metrics, he says it's probably more like 200 million over the next two years. So that's a big difference.

JUNKO YOSHIDA: You laid out in your stories. Rick, that some advances in Intel’s new CPUs, FPGAs and memory modules have come at a cost of Intel proprietary lock-ins. What concerns are you hearing from the engineering community on this?

RICK MERRITT: So, strategically here, Intel is trying to do a really interesting thing that I think a lot of other companies will do too, which is that while Moore's Law is slowing and so the performance gains in any one chip aren't as great as they had been in the past, they're trying to tie many chips together.In this case, Xeon processors and FPGAs over a cache-coherent processor bus with Optane DIMMS using Intel's proprietary DDRT protocol. And then together they will all give bigger boosts than any one chip. It's sort of the dogsled metaphor is the way I think about this. And it's smart. It's what companies are going to increasingly do. But Intel is adding this kicker of having proprietary interconnects between the Xeon, the FPGA, and the Optane.

I talked to two top data center engineers and a couple analysts, and they both said they really think this is going to be a non-starter. Companies don't want to get locked in. It's bad enough for most of them that they depend upon Intel for their processors. They don't want to be locked in and dependent upon some of their memories as well.

So strategically it makes sense. Practically, we don't think it's going to go over. And that was kind of the story that we came away from in Hillsboro.

DAVID FINCH: That was Junko Yoshida and Rick Merritt reporting.

And now, Science and Technology writer George Leopold, who recently wrote anin-depth analysis entitled “Software Won’t Fix Boeing’s ‘Faulty’ Air frame,” sat down with Greg Travis for an exclusive interview with EETimes On Air. Mr. Travis, who was quoted in George’s story,recently posted a damning critique of the 737 MAX fiasco. As Boeing hurriedly updates its MCAS software, Mr. Travis explains if the updates can save the Boeing 737 Max.

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