Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Most people locate Intel processors either on PC PCs, in servers in data center clusters, or in large overruns. Previously, through Intel's NEX business (Network and Edge Group), we learned that Intel processors have actually penetrated into the edge of various industries, including education, retail, finance and so on. In fact, based on the cost sensitivity of many industries, the use of more common platforms, and then supplemented by some degree of customization, is a general understanding of digital realization in different industries.

When it comes to Intel's CCG business (Client Computing Group), which we have paid most attention to over the years, in fact, this business direction must not only be core processors, but also not just ordinary desktops or laptops as we are familiar with.

In September, Intel gave a number of media-oriented keynote speeches, including several forms of client-side products, including NAS, mini PC, and workstations. These products are not as far away from the average user as the data center or the cloud. Although the underlying computing power, CPU support is nothing more than Atom, Core and Super strong, but we can still see the state of the computer industry.

The Evolution of Super strong W Workstation

In the past, when we talked about "workstations" in the context of CCG, we often referred to high-performance workstations based on Core-especially when talking about "mobile workstations". Before that, the HX series CPU of Core was specially targeted at mobile workstations.

On the other hand, Intel's "Xeon" product line is generally located in the data center server in the public impression. But those of you who are familiar with the positioning of Intel processors should know that Intel has a very strong W-series product line, which is a workstation-oriented processor that has been around since the Skylake era.

From the positioning point of view, the most strong W should be above E3. Because the former tends to have more cores, PCIe channels and ECC memory support and so on. According to the data of Wikichip, before it appeared, Zhiqiang W was indeed hung under E5 and belonged to the then Xeqiang E5 1600 series. Since Skylake, workstations and HEDT positioning products have been separated from server brands-when HEDT was still popular, Xeon W and HEDT Core i7 / i9 were similar in terms of socket slot support.

Green, product manager of Intel workstations and manager of computer vision application modules, said at the media conference: "our workstations are divided into three categories in terms of performance: entry level, mainstream level and expert level." He also mentioned: "the entry-level workstation defined now is already Core's high-end CPU. However, Core and Xeqiang W still carry completely different applications. For example, Ansys simulation software, the basic software package is 200G, which is not supported by an entry-level platform like Core."

The new Q1 Super W series this year covers different products such as W3, W5, W7 and W9. According to Intel's official website, the highest positioning Sapphire Rapids in the product list is the Xeon W9-3400 series, with the highest 56 cores, 105MB L3 cache, 8-channel DDR5 ECC support (maximum 4TB RAM), and 112-channel PCIe Gen 5 supported processors.

These reflect the different requirements of workstation applications compared with ordinary PC, including CPU computing resources; memory requirements-"such as ECC verification functions, large memory support," Green said, "especially life science computing requires particularly high memory capacity"; and the requirements for graphics cards reflect the more accelerated computing needs and accelerated computing ecological development of HPC applications. " Performance, stability, professionalism, scalability, etc., these are the differences between workstations and traditional PC. "

From Skylake to Sapphire Rapids, the workstation itself has actually changed a lot. The concept of "workstation" was born in the 1980s, and the earliest workstations were mainly used for scientific computing. Up to now, the scope of functions of workstations has been significantly expanded, including graphics, vision, etc., "from simple data calculation to the need for simulation calculation and so on." the segmentation of applications has also accelerated the development of the market. "

Intel summarizes the evolution of workstations into three points.

(1) customization and compound computing. "compound computing" actually refers to heterogeneous computing requirements, including CPU with other accelerator solutions is also an embodiment of Intel XPU strategy. And "customization", from the Intel to divide the Chinese workstation market into two major sectors, one for large enterprises, scientific research institutions, and the other is small and medium-sized enterprises, customers with customized needs.

The type of equipment delivered by the former is relatively unified, while the latter has a variety of customized needs. "for example, aviation suitcase type, rack type, cabinet type and so on, these products are all built to meet the needs of localization and customization." For example, TV stations need suitcase-style equipment.

(2) Cloud and mobile computing. Needless to say, mobile demand is not only in the form of high-performance notebooks, but also includes customized mobile devices. Typically, such as mechanical flaw detection applications, you need to bring a customized mobile workstation to the site. Cloud-to put it bluntly, it is a solution that is more central to computing power, easy to manage and deploy.

(3) AI. When edge devices are deployed in thousands of industries, you can foresee the unlimited potential of AI applications. In particular, different industries need AI-based CV applications; now this requirement is further extended to generative AI-compared with personal PC, workstations can do not only AI reasoning, but also larger model fine-tuning. Green mentioned Intel's support for AI on workstations, including support for AI computing at the CPU instruction set level and AMX units; accelerators such as Flex GPU and AI chip Gaudi 2; and ecological support for software and tools such as OpenVINO and oneAPI; plus cooperation with three-party ISV. Judging from Green's introduction, perhaps the next generation of workstations will further emphasize AI acceleration.

Judging from the development of the workstation market, Intel gave some data on the Chinese market. "Last year, it was a market capacity of 1.2 million units." "IDC data show that the market is still growing steadily and rapidly, at around 9 per cent a year," Mr Green said. This data mainly refers to the first category of China's workstation market in the picture above, that is, customers represented by large enterprises and scientific research institutions, while the market of small and medium-sized enterprises is growing faster. "We do weighted averages." the entire Chinese workstation market should be maintained at an increment of about 10%. "

Therefore, on the issue of "helping Chinese customers", Intel advocates made in China, in-depth optimization and precision service. Made in China, which means "all accessories have begun to cooperate with local accessories manufacturers, such as motherboard, antipyretic, chassis, etc., and also cooperate with local partners on the system." the major OEM enterprises are also listed in the above chart.

The "in-depth optimization" for Chinese customers includes cooperation with domestic software companies, such as Hang Seng Electronics (hundsun) and Ekronk (AcceleCom) related to high-frequency quantitative trading software, as well as the renderer D5 in the construction industry, and Polar 3D under Sophia-doing creative household design and flexible production. It is said that Intel and the last two have also done the layout of the AI algorithm.

"Precision service" from the introduction of Intel, to some extent, refers to the application-oriented customized service. For example, GE Lin cited an example: "during the Sichuan hill fire two or three years ago, the Chengdu Emergency Management Bureau quickly purchased a batch of mobile workstations and distributed them to various fire brigades. In extreme cases, you can immediately see the scene from the mobile workstation and accurately calculate the impact of the disaster." It seems that Intel workstations have penetrated into many industries in China.

Mini PC and NAS in the industry

The device in the form of mini PC used to be called NUC on the Intel side. This is a solution for putting PC in a small box in a compact size. By July this year, before Intel announced that it would no longer invest directly in the NUC business, Intel had launched 13 generations of NUC products, as shown below.

We know that generally speaking, non-OEM manufacturers go out to build the whole machine equipment (or module, board-level system design), and it is more likely to play the role of "reference design" rather than to compete with downstream OEM customers. At first, the acceptance of the mini PC market was not high. Bao Shian, director of sales for client platform solutions, also said that in the past, the mini PC market "needed to be nurtured and stimulated," so Intel "ended up doing this on its own" and "more to prove to the market that PC can do very small and powerful things."

Now "Intel mini PC has shipped more than 10 million units". With the increase in mini PC shipments and a rich product line, Intel believes that "we don't need to play the role of the 'rabbit' in front of us now", so he chose to seek development in mini PC products with ecological partners instead. The shift in acceptance should be largely based on advances in semiconductor technology, making it easier for small sizes to accommodate high performance.

Intel divides mini PC into three categories: household, commercial and industry. Home scenes are not only miniaturized desktops, but also set-top boxes, home entertainment centers, etc.; business scenes cover distance education, online courses, home video conferencing, etc.; industry applications include intelligent manufacturing, retail and other fields. For industry applications, Bao cited the example of the real estate agent "I love my home". In the case of limited workspace and intensive workplaces, mini PC replaced the tower chassis to ensure security and flexibility without sacrificing performance. It is said that 180 stores in Tianjin and Beijing, where I love my home, have switched to mini PC.

Judging from the statistics of IDC, the main market of mini PC is still at the end of the industry. "personal consumption retail ports only account for less than 1 / 4 of mini PC shipments." "the vast majority of mini PC is sold in industry application scenarios," Bao said. " And the future will still be "industry shipping port as the main force."

Based on these facts, Intel's current attitude towards mini PC is to provide customized services, as well as turnkey solutions, and there is a special technical team to support OEM's own research. For example, the Xiaomi mini mainframe, which was popular in December last year, is a product based on Intel's customized service. It can be seen that Intel has spared no effort to support mini PC form devices.

In terms of downstream OEM brands, in addition to the traditional MNC and local OEM manufacturers that have emerged in recent years, there are also some brands specializing in mini PC, such as Zero moment, MINSFORUM, Geomoc, etc., and there are also "PC ecosystem related brands" such as AOC, Hangjia and Weigang, which did not do the whole machine before. It can be seen that the market is still profitable. "although we no longer invest directly in the NUC product line, we are still determined to grow our customers' mini PC business." Bao Xianan said.

In addition, there is a relatively large NAS (Network Attached Storage) storage that should also be the focus of Intel client business and has a good growth trend. According to Enterprise Storage Forum's data in April last year, the NAS market was worth $25.08 billion in 2022, and CAGR is expected to be 20.3% in 2022-2028, so it could reach $91.23 billion in 2028.

We think the estimate of this value is still too radical, but it is clear that the overall market rally remains the same. And it is worth mentioning that although North America is currently the largest NAS market, accounting for about 30% of the world's share, the Asia-Pacific region is growing the fastest, and the Chinese market is naturally an important part of Intel's NAS applications. It is said that JD.com 's 618 data showed that the turnover of NAS products increased by 50 per cent compared with the same period last year.

In terms of vertical industries, more than 50 per cent of the NAS market is dominated by banking, financial services, insurance, IT, communications and retail; other major application areas include health, energy and facilities, government, and manufacturing. It can be seen that NAS, like mini PC, is mostly used by the industry, not by individuals or home users-although more and more households are using NAS for data backup and recovery, secure file sharing, or streaming entertainment.

According to the performance requirements of different NAS markets, Intel divides the processors required by NAS into three levels: good, better and best. Caiyang, Atom is good positioning, more for the home market; Core processor is better positioning, with higher specifications of positioning support, and scalable, small and medium-sized enterprises, designers may be in this category The highest best positioning, for professional users, and the industry market are the Xeon and Xeon D-Series processors, which initially emphasized lower power consumption, higher power density, and integrated hardware modules such as NIC and PCIe root complex, which have higher requirements for security and networking.

Bao Xianan said that the mainstream NAS in China is "mostly based on Intel platform products"; in addition to providing CPU, Intel also provides "other advanced connection technologies", including network card, Wi-Fi, Thunderbolt and other technologies. For ODM and OEM, we also provide turnkey solutions, "We complete all the hardware and software tuning of the NAS platform", "there are also partners in software to meet the needs of OEM, to make a better UI experience, and even customer customization needs."

The following picture shows the downstream OEM brands that Intel cooperates in China with regard to the NAS market, including Lenovo, Green Alliance, Terra Master and so on. Bao Xianan specifically mentioned that Polar Space won the double crown of sales and sales of the whole network during the JD.com 618 shopping event this year, an increase of 60% over the same period last year. It can be seen that the trend of the NAS market is still quite good.

From Intel's introduction to the market layout of workstations, mini PC and NAS, we can still see that there is a different impression of Intel in CCG business. Probably because the market has become more popular in recent years, and the clock of Moore's Law is moving more slowly, at the Synopsys developer Conference not long ago, we were still saying that even EDA manufacturers are now desperately paying attention to all kinds of application scenarios on the application side, not to mention Intel, which is directly engaged in chip design and manufacture, from hardware to software are more top-level application-oriented.

Zong Ye, general manager of Intel's client and distribution platform business in China, said at the beginning of the event that Intel is still "as always" to help industry partners, through product innovation and cooperation to win-win, and ultimately enhance people's PC experience and life happiness. The fuller contact with the downstream here should be the main theme of the times. For example, from the fact that Intel itself is extremely concerned about the workstation equipment shape of customers in the industry, we can see that this is an in-depth understanding of "customers' customers". And the continued deep digging of the industry may also help Intel to further obtain the potential market.

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