Intel in early talks to add AMD as foundry customer

semafor.com

19 points·scrlk··4 comments

Until Intel spins out their fabs into a separate entity, I don't think there is sufficient internal motivation to focus on the culture changes required to win and keep foundry customers. The rot of being a virtual monopoly for so long is simply too deeply engrained. Just as AMD spun out Global Foundries back in 2009 to survive, so must Intel.

Who'd have thought a couple decades ago that Intel would be making chips for AMD? Imagine if IBM had made clones for their PC competitors.

Do you think some of these companies are investing in part because they don't want to see TSMC solidify a monopoly, and would prefer to have multiple suppliers?

TSMC isn't a monopoly. You could go to Samsung like Tesla did. People weren't bringing monopoly worries in 2018 when Intel shut down their first disastrous attempt at being a foundry after about 5 years.

What you're seeing now is an "offer you can't refuse" to the fabless designers to direct private capital to Intel by the US for national security reasons and some political points. It buys Intel cash which it desperately needs for its foundry efforts and is a quasi-bailout of Intel shareholders and debtholders. The problem is that Intel doesn't know how to be a foundry in terms of volume and breadth of customers and will need an indefinite amount of capital to learn.

> The problem is that Intel doesn't know how to be a foundry in terms of volume and breadth of customers and will need an indefinite amount of capital to learn.

Indefinite is much less than infinite, they will learn because they have to. For better or worse, throwing money at the problem is how the US operates, trowing trillions into AI cannot risk being dependent on unstable Taiwan or capacity-constrained Samsung.

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