[pinkyand]

IBM had a unique process call silicon-on-insulator that gives you something like an extra step in moore's law with regards to power and speed(but not cost). They also had their EDRAM technology , which is much more efficient memory type for cache.

This enabled them to build a huge(100MB) and fast(3TB/sec) L3 cache in their processors. This is something that could give a huge boost for many kinds of applications, for example databases d\and machine learning.

While intel has some edram capability, i haven't seem them release an integrated edram with the processor, not sure why.

And let's not forget, IBM now licenses the design for it's beast of a processor, the power8 ,in a modular format, enabling chip companies to easily add accelerators and innovate.

So it would be very interesting what intel's competitors will build with all those capabilities. I'm getting the popcorn.

[frankchn]

Intel has included a 128MB eDRAM chip on-package (though not on-die) with some Haswell SKUs as a L4 cache for the processor and graphics systems.

[WallWextra]

I do believe SOI has some cost disadvantage, and this contributed to its unnpopularity. The POWER8 chips are huge and probably can't be made cheaply, or to consume sane amounts of power. IBM would have to take a very thin cut to compete with Intel.

[pinkyand]

The cheapest node today and for a long time is 28nm. But there are many applications where people are willing to pay more for performance, like processors.

Second there's a debate whether SOI is more expensive once it reaches volume. The claim vary between 10% more expensive , to cheaper , to something in the middle. We'll see.