What is the inevitable? Previously, you mentioned in another thread that it's Intel being broken down thanks to regulators for being a juggernaut of a monopoly courtesy of reaching critical mass.
Now it seems you mean "inevitable" to be AMD dying?
Yes, the inevitable in my mind is still unchanged, but the journey (sequence of events in timing) of how we will get there has changed up.
I still remain convinced the economics of node cadence and Moore's Law still ensures Intel will outpace and thus outgrow their competition unless they artificially and intentionally apply the R&D investment brakes. This much is unavoidable.
But I had assumed that AMD would live long enough to see Intel reach an end-state and thus would stand to benefit from it, that assumption was based on my expectation that AMD would carve a hefty >10B cash transfer from Intel from the myriad of lawsuits and this cash would enable AMD to limp along for the decade or so that it will take for Intel to reach the end-state.
Now however I am not so convinced AMD will be there to see Intel be disassembled at the hands of government intervention. (just as AT&T's competitors were no longer around, nor Standard Oil's) The probability for that occurring has undeniably decreased with the settlement coming in an order of magnitude lower than I was factoring it to be.
But you know what they say about the future:
Yogi Berra said:
The future ain't what it used to be.
and
Yogi Berra said:
Prediction is very hard, especially about the future.
The nice thing here is that this erases any issues remaining for the GlobalFoundries divestiture to ATIC, meaning AMD retains all existing licensing for x86 and can continue producing processors for the foreseeable future.
Yep, this removes the nagging concerns of business viability that were hovering over the head of GF's as they sought to secure future customers.
Knowing full well that the viability of GF hinged critically on AMD being a key customer account, any doubts surrounding AMD's legal ability to remain a customer of GF's for x86 volumes definitely put a damper on would-be customers contemplating the move to GF. (i.e. Intel's lawsuit was the stuff of dreams for TSMC's marketing dept...you can't invent opportunities to spread FUD like that, truth is stranger than fiction)
With this technicality now eliminated, GF's no longer has to fight with phantom marketing shenanigans created by the competing foundries. Potential customers may still question the stability of GF's versus sticking with an established foundry supplier like TSMC but it won't be out of concern that Intel's deep pockets might squash the GF spin-off at some distant point in the future.
That seed of doubt has now been hit with a spritz of Roundup.
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