1. March 2015
The Eighth International Conference
INCOSE_IL 2015
System Design
The Good And The Bad:
Intel’s Story With Systems
Amir Rahat
Intel
2. 2
System Design / The Good And The BadMarch 2015
The Good And The Bad:
Intel’s Story With Systems
Amir Rahat
Strategic Planner, Design Technology Solutions
Intel
3. 3
System Design / The Good And The BadMarch 2015
Intel’s Complexity Successes
1,300,000,000 transistors
(5th Generation Intel® Core™)
0.000,000,014 meters channel
(1/5000 of a hair’s width)
Over 100 million microprocessors shipped in Q3’14 alone
New & challenging eco-system
4. 4
System Design / The Good And The BadMarch 2015
So, How Did We Do It?
Excellent engineers & technical management
Everyone knows their job
Everyone has an intuitive understanding of the overall
system and its priorities
A lot of ad-hoc communication
Key, networked people serving as discussions foci
Assumed responsibility & leading from the trenches
Process is secondary to “doing what’s right”
A culture of striving for excellence
So no need for System Engineers, right?
5. 5
System Design / The Good And The BadMarch 2015
HW Sys Architecture
HW DesignHW Validation
SW Sys Architecture
SW DesignSW Validation
Environment
PackagingBoard
System Architecture
Strategic PlanningMarketing
Feature Sys
Arch & Design
Mult.
OSesMult.
Pkgs
Advanced
Design
Process Spec
Technology
Development
Manufacturing
Ramp
Manufacturing
Debug
Post-Si SW Validation
& Debug
Post-Si Env Validation
& Debug
Post-Si HW Validation
& Debug
High Volume
Manufacturing
& Test
For a single product, ~5,000 people might be involved over 3-5 years
Product Spec
Conceptual Product Creation Flow
Product Release
IP System
Architecture
IP Design
6. 6
System Design / The Good And The BadMarch 2015
But Then The Cheese Moved
7. 7
System Design / The Good And The BadMarch 2015
And When The Cheese Moves…
False sense of confidence
Job changes catch people off guard
No replacement for missing intuitive understanding
Communication becomes chaotic
Discussions foci points are overwhelmed
Trenches focus on local optimization
No process to fall back on
No System Engineers to pull it together
The need for SE process is seen when things change
8. 8
System Design / The Good And The BadMarch 2015
Intel Is Coming Back Swinging
9. 9
System Design / The Good And The BadMarch 2015
My Conclusions
Plan ahead: Develop an explicit SE Process
Did we learn everything we could from the crisis?
