Giving up manufacturing would be terrible. It really feels like Intel is ceding any hope of leadership to focus on milking their IP for cash. That would be incredibly frustrating and sad.
I hope it's not true or just very limited scope.
I hope it's not true or just very limited scope.
This might be their only good option. Sure outsourcing manufacturing is a risk, but it's probably one they need to take. They will catch back up if they can get their 7nm node back on track, which isn't a given.
I presume it was incorrect technical decisions rather than a lack of money.
That's not how Socialism works, but you can call it elitist and extreme capitalism if you like...or United Cyberpunk of America.
- How long to rinse
- What to rinse with (DI water, solvent, etc)
- What temperature to rinse at
- Should the temperature change over time?
- Agitated vs. non-agitated
It may sound small, but a bad rinse process will tank yields and make the whole process fail.
In a huge semiconductor company like Intel or TSMC, multiple process engineers specialize on each one of these steps out of hundreds. These are truly massive undertakings.
But it's not giving up on Intel fabs to get their stuff produced by TSMC. They need to do both - they need to make money by producing the best designs in the market no matter what the process in the high end space, as wl as sinking investment into their fabrication side to make sure that in 5 years time they're the leading fab. At which point they can turn around and say F-U to all those TSMC customers, produce only Intel chips and use that to capture market share.
This is why I suggest it's a profit taking move. If they ditched all manufacturing, their profitability will certainly go up in the near term.
But then how does Intel fend off increasingly competitive ARM CPUs? So long as Intel had a hand in manufacturing, they at least have a chance of maintaining an edge through their processes.
I'm also deeply frustrated that yet another manufacturing giant is leaving the US. But that's more or less another issue.
Maybe if they spun out the fab part but they have so much stuff under the corporation that probably makes no sense.
Manufacturing at the leading edge is getting increasingly expensive, to the point where every fab other than TSMC, Samsung, and Intel has bowed out over the years and has never operated on the leading edge again.
A major part of the reason for this consolidation is that fabs need more and more economies of scale in order to make up the cost of the initial investment in the fab. If you can't achieve those economies of scale, then the manufacturing node will never be profitable, and whoever's bankrolling it will quickly pull the plug. (GlobalFoundries exiting the 7nm market is the most recent example of this.)
If Intel outsources leading edge production to TSMC or Samsung, they will lose operational experience and infrastructure needed to operate fabs at the leading edge, and their fabs will never be competitive for leading edge production again (barring a major misstep by TSMC or Samsung).
Fabricating, and design are very different businesses.
The assumption is x86 will remain competitive for years to come, but that seems a lot less clear now. It feels like what ARM is doing right now is quite similar to what x86 did to mini computers and mainframes.
ARM has become a competitive pressure that will prevent Intel and AMD from cashing in on that platform the way they have in the past. Chromebooks and the iPad have been nibbling at the low end for a few years now. Now Apple's M1 is taking a big chunk out of Intel's lucrative ultrabook market. Microsoft and other OEMs are going to start pushing harder on ARM just to stay competitive.
Though being the sole licensee of x86, maybe AMD can pull a weird rabbit out of their hat.
I was trying to hint that AMD might make some weird hybrid x86/ ARM beast that could have the advantages of ARM much of the time, but could run x86 native. I'm not sure that's even possible.
AMD might do well in a post x86 world. It's just a broader playing field.
I'm sure it could be done... but probably would have some interesting effects on software (unless you do full x86 emulation on the ARM cores... but then what's the point).
It's far more likely we'll start seeing ARM processors with hundreds or thousands of cores in the server market first. These would be particularly interesting to virtual server providers like Amazon, Google, Digital Ocean and others.
Keeping their Fab arm was quite literally going to bankrupt them back when they made the decision to spin it off.
They could not afford to sink the R&D cost into newer, smaller process fabing and recognized maintaining their own Fab would (a) bankrupt AMD attempting to push into newer processes and/or (b) prevent AMD from ever being competitive in the x86 market due to using old process.
In hindsight, it was a brilliant move, and now has allowed AMD to partner with any Fab that has the technology AMD needs.
For AMD, it was the best possible move both long and short term because they never had a leadership position. That doesn't mean it's the best thing for Intel. Intel has for years commanded a premium because of their branding and platform power. They need to demonstrate a technological edge or their margins are going to collapse.
See the problem?
And that is exactly why they've lost their "advantage" over AMD. Intel got bogged down in very expensive R&D, and failed over and over to produce yield good enough to mass produce retail chips.
As far as I know, TSMC and Samsung are both considered leading-edge.
Right now current estimates put Intel's 7nm node at least 2-3 years away... and that's after all the delays that they have already experienced. It's so bad, Intel is seriously considering outsourcing chip production for not just GPU's, but CPU's as well - that means Intel believes it's in a really bad position.
By the time Intel finally gets their 7nm process working at acceptable yields... 7nm will be old news. TSMC is working on 5 and 4nm processes right now, and of course AMD will be using them to their advantage at the earliest date possible.
Meanwhile, Samsung shipped AMD chips for Ryzen 1 (and 2?), and is producing GPU chips for AMD to this day. TSMC is producing Ryzen 3 (and possibly other things for AMD). Both companies will be producing something for Intel soon, it seems.
Like it or not, Samsung is obviously producing things Intel cannot.
Clearly, allowing Intel to use current state-of-the-art fab processes from whichever company at the time happens to be the best is a sure winner for Intel.
> allowing Intel to use current state-of-the-art fab processes from whichever company at the time happens to be the best is a sure winner
That's the type of one-move-ahead thinking I expect investors will love right up until AMD and Intel give up all their margins bidding against each other for the kingmaking process. Intel would still be behind 50% of the time, when they lose the bidding war, with the difference being that the 50% of the time they are ahead they don't get to keep the margins.
Intel's deep pockets have got to be starting to feel lighter at this point - and they're looking at many more years of sinking money into a black hole before being able to produce useful things. (during which time AMD will be leapfrogging to newer fab processes as they become available)
We're already starting to see OEM's use AMD cpu's like we haven't in nearly 2 decades. The server and datacenter markets are coming around to AMD and it's Threadrippers as well. Eventually Intel's sweetheart OEM deals will expire, and who knows if they'll be renegotiated or ditched completely? That will be exceptionally painful for Intel... as those OEM deals are largely what Intel has been coasting on for all this time.
I just don't see an option for Intel, unless they want to gamble their competitiveness possibly permanently. They're not quite in dire straights like AMD was when it spun off Global Foundries... but the outlook is much the same.
> That's the type of one-move-ahead thinking I expect investors will love right up until AMD and Intel give up all their margins bidding against each other for the kingmaking process.
Seems like a major win for consumers. There's no reason to have a $10,000 consumer CPU today, with the exception of lack of competition in both price and performance.
a year or two ago AMD use Global foundries. a year or two ago they switched to TSMC. AMD should ditch Global foundries a long time ago.
AMD/Apple/Nvidia gave up manufacturing took all the cash and left Intel a long way behind. Its manufacturing is causing their problems and losing leadership.
> Its manufacturing is causing their problems and losing leadership.
Certainly. But not long ago they were top dog. Ceasing manufacturing their own CPUs would mean they could never be more than a peer among equals. I suppose that's a step up from their current state, but they can kiss their 30% margins goodbye.