Discussion Intel's past, present and future

[poke01]

11 laid off driver-related employees in Oregon alone. And many test/validation positions listed too.
I am not optimistic about future products having the stability Intel was known for (well, almost a decade ago) but who knows.

Question is why doesn’t the management see them as important?

 

[Io Magnesso]

Question is why doesn’t the management see them as important?

Director is stupider than engineers
It's not the CEO or the engineer who destroyed the company. It's the board of directors

 

[igor_kavinski]

Question is why doesn’t the management see them as important?

Because they are dumb as heck but pretend to be smart. More and more corporates are seeing end-users as willing guinea pigs. I read a post on overclock.net that some people are so in love with trying out the latest and greatest technology that they will put themselves through all sorts of hell and report problems and just being given the chance to touch pre-release hardware is enough for them. Free testing and validation. Why would the companies want to pay real testers then?

 

[jpiniero]

Director is stupider than engineers
It's not the CEO or the engineer who destroyed the company. It's the board of directors

It is true that it's not the Board's fault the fab workers screwed up 10 nm that badly.

 

[igor_kavinski]

the fab workers screwed up 10 nm that badly.

Rather their managers. Multiple layers of them.

 

[Io Magnesso]

It is true that it's not the Board's fault the fab workers screwed up 10 nm that badly.

Well, for 10nm, the hurdles of goals were too high. In a way, I failed to set goals...
Far ahead of other companies,
performance at the 7nm process level that other companies call
Intel tried to do it at 10nm...
To be honest, I packed up too many functions.
Engineers were also stupid, but more than that, there is no denying that the directors are stupid.

 

[Saylick]

11 laid off driver-related employees in Oregon alone. And many test/validation positions listed too.
I am not optimistic about future products having the stability Intel was known for (well, almost a decade ago) but who knows.

Yeah, I got the same impression after seeing this Reddit comment:

I was on an engineering team for a flagship product, and I got laid off, as well as a lot of my teammates. From what I've seen, it's been a bloodbath for engineers. The CEO should not have been trusted to make an engineering focused company. He's basically scrapping intel for parts

At this point, I see Intel as descending for a few years with the trough being sometime in 2028, before slowing rebuilding back up in the first half of the 2030s. A lot of talent is going to be shed in the next few years in the interest of keeping the company afloat, and it takes an incredibly long time to rebuild talent. Then, you have to wait for the talent to come back before their products come to market, which itself takes a few years. So I have to ask myself: why would I, the consumer, gamble with Intel products for the next 10 years?

 

[Joe NYC]

At this point, I see Intel as descending for a few years with the trough being sometime in 2028, before slowing rebuilding back up in the first half of the 2030s. A lot of talent is going to be shed in the next few years in the interest of keeping the company afloat, and it takes an incredibly long time to rebuild talent. Then, you have to wait for the talent to come back before their products come to market, which itself takes a few years. So I have to ask myself: why would I, the consumer, gamble with Intel products for the next 10 years?

Good points. another question would be - why would the OEMs gamble with Intel products, push them as hard as they have in the past?

Another shoe will drop when OEMs switch from prioritizing Intel to prioritizing AMD.

 

[Io Magnesso]

Yeah, I got the same impression after seeing this Reddit comment:


At this point, I see Intel as descending for a few years with the trough being sometime in 2028, before slowing rebuilding back up in the first half of the 2030s. A lot of talent is going to be shed in the next few years in the interest of keeping the company afloat, and it takes an incredibly long time to rebuild talent. Then, you have to wait for the talent to come back before their products come to market, which itself takes a few years. So I have to ask myself: why would I, the consumer, gamble with Intel products for the next 10 years?

Why will the stock price drop further in 2028?
You are too naive
The stock price is expected to reach $5 per share soon next year.

 

[jpiniero]

Good points. another question would be - why would the OEMs gamble with Intel products, push them as hard as they have in the past?

Cuz Raptor Lake is cheap.

 

[Io Magnesso]

Cuz Raptor Lake is cheap.

Besides, there are many
There is an overwhelming supply

 

[Joe NYC]

Why will the stock price drop further in 2028?
You are too naive
The stock price is expected to reach $5 per share soon next year.

Interestingly, Intel stock has been up last month.

There is a knee-jerk Wall Street reaction that downsizing, layoffs, cutting expenses will automatically improve profitability. Assuming revenue will stay where it is.

Intel's problem is that the revenue has been on a down trend, which could even accelerate.

The most vulnerable is Intel's client market, which is keeping the company afloat.

 

[Joe NYC]

Cuz Raptor Lake is cheap.

Funny that you mention it, I think it is Amazon "Prime Day" today. I clicked on the "desktop" category, and nearly all the desktop from OEMs are cheap (low end) Alder and Raptor Lakes. Very low number of AMD desktop in the listing I opened.

 

[511]

It is true that it's not the Board's fault the fab workers screwed up 10 nm that badly.

Yeah blame them they had their budget cut out as well they didn't get the money need from Swan/BK also the toxic culture and BK didn't help watch interview with Ann Kehller she blatantly said that funding was a big issue instead of doing stock buyback should have invested in their in own business.

 

[511]

I am seeing people with 20+ years at Intel getting laid off I am not hearing a single manager/Product/program getting fired.

Just saw 1 in one of the post lol

 

[DavidC1]

Yeah, I got the same impression after seeing this Reddit comment

Did you see what the response said? The layoff was in Diamond Rapids team.

 

[511]

Did you see what the response said? The layoff was in Diamond Rapids team.

Yeah I clearly saw it they will just spin it is a delay they themselves caused just like Clearwater Forest it wasn't tech issue but a layoff issue.

 

[DavidC1]

It is true that it's not the Board's fault the fab workers screwed up 10 nm that badly.

It's not though. It was entirely BK management's fault. They had absolute leadership in Otellini's time. Same team.

 

[Io Magnesso]

It's not though. It was entirely BK management's fault. They had absolute leadership in Otellini's time. Same team.

Also, I think it would have been better to lower the performance requirements and goals a little... Well, if the upper part of the is incompetent, everything will be ruined.

 

[Io Magnesso]

LBT was a weak person who whispered...
Can't you even show the roadmap?

 

[DrMrLordX]

"Another cycle lost" - 18A

Not just 18a but 18ap as well, which is really bad. 18ap could have/should have fixed the nagging problems keeping foundry customers away from 18a, but now Intel is pulling that back too and focusing on 14a?

 

[511]

It's not though. It was entirely BK management's fault. They had absolute leadership in Otellini's time. Same team.

Yeah totally BK's Fault alongside Swan who didn't address these stuff

 

[Io Magnesso]

Not just 18a but 18ap as well, which is really bad. 18ap could have/should have fixed the nagging problems keeping foundry customers away from 18a, but now Intel is pulling that back too and focusing on 14a?

I don't think I know the situation of 18AP yet.
Ordinary 18A is mainly for in-house It's not impossible, but it's not very well prepared for external customers, so it's not very suitable for use by external customers.
18AP has a lot of free time since the release of 18A, and it seems that various groundworks are in place. It may be that external customers are easier to handle than before.
Considering the time when something using 18A of an external customer comes out
Since the main production base of 18A is the Arizona factory, there may be an external customer's product from the second half of 2026 to 2027 when it will start full-scale operation.

 

[poke01]

forget about 14A. I want to see how well 18A is in PTL. Can it clock as high as N3P or even surpass it and is it as efficient as N3P? If it is, it will give external customers confidence to go with Intel next.

 

[Joe NYC]

Not just 18a but 18ap as well, which is really bad. 18ap could have/should have fixed the nagging problems keeping foundry customers away from 18a, but now Intel is pulling that back too and focusing on 14a?

You would think that LBT, inheriting a lemon from Gelsinger, where Intel has no external customer (therefore too much capacity) and too many people, that he would take all these extra employees and have them port every piece of silicon to Intel nodes (and then lay them off).

But my guess, this is not happening, money will be spent on TSMC silicon, and Intel fabs will be half empty.

BTW, at least Intel is considering closing down the outdated fab in Israel and slow down the bleeding there...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1942837153408639234