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Comment by dveeden2 | Hacker News Reader

This seems to be part of some bigger cost cutting changes https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-sunsets-network-swit...

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Shutting down the network switch business after eating Fulcrum and Barefoot is the bigger news here. So much money went into a pit there.

It's tragic, really. Tofino chips were such a promising and impactful technology.

The Tofino chips were amazingly programmable, and before that, the Fulcrum chips were amazingly fast. Intel got ahold of both of them, and the magic was gone.

The latest Tofino 3 is... quite something to look at. Might actually take the cake for largest MCM and largest BGA package at over 10k pins. The POWER5 MCM is a similar size but has much fewer contacts.

Damn what will happen to Oxide Computers, they relay on that. Are Tofinos still going to be produced?

Edit: Seems they will support existing costumers and products. Still sad to see, lots of potential there.

As you note, Tofino 2 is still being supported: the team has been very candid and transparent with us (which we very much appreciate!) and Intel has been both formal and explicit about their ongoing support for Tofino 2. We agree with you that there is lots of potential here -- and we are not backing away from the vision of the software-driven switch (and we are pleased that Intel remains engaged with P4).

They can't cancel a major product line like that without at least 5 years of notice.

Intel ARC is not long for this world.

Intel needs to be a player in graphics. If they give up on ARC then their future will be constrained as at most a player in the ever shrinking x86 and fabs. Which would be an inglorious ending to what was a powerhouse.

It's at least a plausible theory.

If Intel cancels ARC, I think their credibility problem will get even worse, given all their marketing.

I think they'd be perilously close to Killed-by-Google territory at that point. I.e., people would be less willing to make plans/purchases based on future product availability.

At this point, so long as Gelsinger remains CEO, I expect many more divestures and sales of company assets to continue happening. He seems to take great pride in "exiting" Intel from various businesses and getting rid of seemingly superfluous projects and investments.

The grandiose manner of Gelsinger's cost cutting measures almost makes him look like the anti-thesis to the Sunken Cost Fallacy.

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