Discussion Intel's past, present and future

[DrMrLordX]

Really the semi industry and everything would be like this without Moore's Law ?

YES

He doesn't want the tax dollars he wants funding from customers and they can make Intel a better foundry by actually berating them you are doing this wrong and all that. He wants government to force the companies to do this $40 Billion si too much though.

Same difference, what exactly do you think "funding from customers" means if customers have no incentive to fund a company that currently can't meet their needs? Nobody is going to pay extra money to Intel today in hopes that they can fix 14A or whatever. Not without someone bigger and meaner forcing them to do so.

 

[511]

Same difference, what exactly do you think "funding from customers" means if customers have no incentive to fund a company that currently can't meet their needs? Nobody is going to pay extra money to Intel today in hopes that they can fix 14A or whatever. Not without someone bigger and meaner forcing them to do so.

If this was the logic Apple would never have went to TSMC even TSMC had released broken process in the past

YES

I don't think we will agree on this

 

[Doug S]

New stock manipulation

Having the DoD sign up to buy a lot of capacity from Intel would be WAY better than Trump illegally forcing Apple and Nvidia to buy chips from Intel. That would cost them dearly if Intel was unable to deliver sufficient capacity on time or on target performance-wise.

For the DoD keeping to schedule commitments is less important, since defense projects almost always experience delays anyway. They also probably would want those chips over a much longer timeframe than Apple/Nvidia, who would want to move on to the next process as soon as it is available, so Intel wouldn't have to deliver massive capacities immediately.

I don't really know what the DoD would need tens of billions of dollars worth of 14A for. Historically defense gear hasn't been on the cutting edge, to put it mildly. So the "good" interpretation is that they're planning on investing heavily in drones and other smaller scale systems that can be designed/built in more reasonable product cycle timelines than programs like the F35. The "bad" interpretation is that the "US national defense department" mentioned in the tweet isn't the DoD but rather the NSA, who will be using these chips to beef up their black site datacenters in Utah.

 

[oak8292]

If this was the logic Apple would never have went to TSMC even TSMC had released broken process in the past

I don't think we will agree on this

Do foreign companies also need to put up money in this bailout scenario or do they get a competitive advantage by actually getting functional wafers at lower cost for their money?

The U.S. is in a temporary position of leadership. It has been slipping away for 30 years and more quickly as Intel stumbles.

There is nothing magic here to say the U.S. dominance survives. The U.S. has massive military spending, very large corporate spending but they are less than 5% of the global consumers. Even prior to the current anti immigrant sentiments globally the world was starting to work remotely from different countries. An Asian does not need to leave home to work for Intel.

Capital is flowing to many countries and Intel was even caught out on U.S. hand outs because they were finishing a fab in Ireland when the money was flowing for fabs in the U.S.

In the past technology licenses, like x86 were required for second sourcing. IBM, GF and Samsung had a fab consortium and Samsung licensed 14 nm to GF. Second sources for TSMC haven’t been available as costs to second source are essentially prohibitive. Fabs aren’t built in case somebody needs capacity. The insurance is too expensive.

 

[Khato]

Which of TSMC's processes is NVIDIA using for their top product at the moment? N4P wasn't it? Pretty sure Intel could manage a comparable offering. Serving Apple adequately is more questionable, and of course there's the matter of volume.

Regardless, NVIDIA and Apple may well find themselves regretting their promises to each invest $500B+ in US manufacturing. Seems that they might be called to actually put forth some of the promised money to get Intel Foundry into a state that it can manufacture their products in the US.

 

[OneEng2]

I think that the US government should fund AND administer Intel.... but the issue being brought up is very valid. By who? A true expert with vision would be needed to guide the company (generally this is what a CEO is supposed to do).

I also feel .... "ick" when thinking about government getting involved in private businesses; however, I don't see how the US can compete with global businesses that are playing by other rules in other countries without it.

It's already a HUGE burden we place on employers to cover the health cost of its employees while most developed countries off-load this burden completely or partially to the government.

This isn't much different. How can Intel survive footing its own bill while TSMC gets a ton of help from its government?

 

[Saylick]

This isn't much different. How can Intel survive footing its own bill while TSMC gets a ton of help from its government?

Intel likely cannot survive without outside funding, whether it be from partnerships or straight from the US government. It simply costs too much money to develop and scale a bleeding edge node that Intel products alone cannot provide the positive cash flow to do it solo. As an American, I too very much dislike the idea of the government bailing out private companies that are "too big to fail" simply because I don't like the idea of paying for someone else's failure, but this is a matter of national security, unfortunately. Maybe I would be OK if a portion of the US defense spending can be allocated towards funding an independent US foundry without drastically increasing the military's budget, and thus my taxes or the national deficit, to begin with.

 

[DavidC1]

Having the DoD sign up to buy a lot of capacity from Intel would be WAY better than Trump illegally forcing Apple and Nvidia to buy chips from Intel. That would cost them dearly if Intel was unable to deliver sufficient capacity on time or on target performance-wise.

This is the problem. Government(nevermind just a branch of government) does not have anywhere near the scale of Intel itself, nevermind something enough to sustain a cutting edge foundry.

The easiest temporary solution is force *Intel* to use their own Foundries. That's the easiest way to fill their fabs. Right now the problem isn't so much they don't have external customers, the problem is that they aren't even using their own. Unless Nvidia/Apple uses Intel Foundry en masse, an announcement to use Intel likely won't cover the losses of Intel itself not using their own.

You know what's the biggest elephant in the room that everyone is refusing to acknowledge? Including here?

-Why isn't Intel, a still mega-user of silicon not using their own Foundries?
-Why not force Intel Product to use Intel products before forcing Apple/Nvidia?
-What's going on with Intel Foundry that Intel Product doesn't want to use their own?
-If we can force Apple/Nvidia to hobble their product by using "inferior" Intel Foundry, wayyyyy before that we can force Intel Product to use Intel Foundries!

 

[igor_kavinski]

-What's going on with Intel Foundry that Intel Product doesn't want to use their own?

That's the question Intel doesn't want to answer and they are scared if the complete truth gets out. Probably paying certain people millions to keep their mouths shut.

 

[Hulk]

Didn't Intel have a "war chest" of billions and billions of dollars?

What happened?

 

[Shmee]

Hello, I have cleaned up some posts which were way off topic, and far too political, without being in the context of this thread. Please keep in mind that this thread is focused on tech and Intel in specific. Further off topic posts, trolling, or political debate may be met with infractions. -AT Moderator Shmee

 

[yottabit]

faster and cheaper microprocessors that put them into OUR hands
vaccines, like polio and countless others
telephone, smart phone, etc..
automobiles non-rich people could afford
farming equipment and techniques that feed the world
the list literally goes on forever...

Pretty much each of these things were only possible due to major government investments or subsidies. So not sure it is the example you think it is. Think microchips out of the space race, the interstate highway program, farmer subsidies, etc.

At least as other’s have said, it’s sort of a sliding scale system we’re in, very much not “Laissez-Faire Capitalism” which has proven to have many problems.

My only real stance as relates to Intel is if we (taxpayers) are going to bail them out the government should get some form of a stake in the company or at least favorable loan terms. Not very interested in “too big to fail” corporate welfare handouts