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Discussion Intel's past, present and future

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Markfw said:
This is what I find very interesting. From that article:

"Reuters said in an exclusive report in March that TSMC had pitched U.S. chip designers Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices and Broadcom to take stakes in a joint venture that would operate Intel's factories."
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I had already heard that and dismissed it quickly. This appears to be the real thing. TSM stock kind of tanking, INTC went from -3% to +6.5% in just a few minutes.
 
Markfw said:
This is what I find very interesting. From that article:

"Reuters said in an exclusive report in March that TSMC had pitched U.S. chip designers Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices and Broadcom to take stakes in a joint venture that would operate Intel's factories."
Click to expand...

This is like 3rd or 4th regurgitation of this "plan"
 
Josh128 said:
I had already heard that and dismissed it quickly. This appears to be the real thing. TSM stock kind of tanking, INTC went from -3% to +6.5% in just a few minutes.
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Why dismiss it? TSMC going in for 20% of the foundry won't solve the cash-flow issue, they need "more wallet" to chip in. I'm not arguing it has to be any of the companies mentioned by Reuters, but the 20% TSMC presence is just a guarantee that Intel can deliver their timelines IF they have the money. Bringing some other chip company on-board might guarantee some foundry volumes too.

Anyway, the only sure thing right now is the TSMC story is real, in the sense that they are indeed exploring something. We'll probably have to let it simmer for another few months until we find out if it's yay or nay.
 
I wonder if it means that TSMC fabs could be retooled for Intel 18A, 16A etc. onwards so Apple has more options and since it will be TSMC fabs, Apple won't have to worry about a competitor gaining access to their secrets while Intel makes some money from their IP too. Another way could be that some Intel fabs come under full TSMC control so other silicon companies don't have to worry about secrets being leaked to Intel design engineers.
 
igor_kavinski said:
I wonder if it means that TSMC fabs could be retooled for Intel 18A, 16A etc. onwards so Apple has more options and since it will be TSMC fabs, Apple won't have to worry about a competitor gaining access to their secrets while Intel makes some money from their IP too. Another way could be that some Intel fabs come under full TSMC control so other silicon companies don't have to worry about secrets being leaked to Intel design engineers.
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What LBT would want is nvidia data centre or gaming GPUs from Intel foundry

Also Broadcom stuff & others of that ilk
 
Joe NYC said:
This is like 3rd or 4th regurgitation of this "plan"
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Frankly, it's the only conceivable plan. That's why TSMC is also pushing it. There are no realistic alternatives so long as the US is going to require national security manufacturing in US plants by US owned companies - and that's not a small amount of stuff, and it's getting more advanced. Intel has to stay in US hands (well, who the f knows any longer now that we have both the dumbest national security and economic garbage going on right now)

As for Apple, they have enough silicon below their flagship SOCs that they can throw at Intel without concern. Keep in mind Intels volume is so much lower than TSMC that it's not like they could throw any of their big products at Intel anyway. But I would think the effort would be to get all of the US designers in there - including Qualcomm and Apple. It would make more sense if everyone was making some kind of purchase guarantee and cash injection.
 
dacostafilipe said:
Then why would TSMC move to an unproven/untested node instead of using their own?
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18A is working. TSMC can even refine it further with their army of PhD workers. AMD will want it if it can help them create 6+ GHz CPUs but they don't want any Intel personnel around their silicon so has to be TSMC controlled Intel fab.
 
coercitiv said:
Why dismiss it? TSMC going in for 20% of the foundry won't solve the cash-flow issue, they need "more wallet" to chip in. I'm not arguing it has to be any of the companies mentioned by Reuters, but the 20% TSMC presence is just a guarantee that Intel can deliver their timelines IF they have the money. Bringing some other chip company on-board might guarantee some foundry volumes too.

Anyway, the only sure thing right now is the TSMC story is real, in the sense that they are indeed exploring something. We'll probably have to let it simmer for another few months until we find out if it's yay or nay.
Click to expand...
Because Nvidia and AMD are not IC fab companies. Their taking any kind of ownership in IFS makes no sense for them, unless they are bat-sh*t crazy. AMD just recently finished financially unwinding the fabs it spun off over a decade ago.
 
igor_kavinski said:
They just publicly declared PTL in 2026
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We don't know if it works, looks like Intel does not either (or more likely they know it does not work now and won't work soon, but still hoping for later).

"Works" I define as hitting goals for perf and cost, while providing real volume.

PTL was H2 2025 (with strong hints of being in summer), and now it's 2026 - when exactly, 31 Dec?
 
igor_kavinski said:
18A is working. TSMC can even refine it further with their army of PhD workers. AMD will want it if it can help them create 6+ GHz CPUs but they don't want any Intel personnel around their silicon so has to be TSMC controlled Intel fab.
Click to expand...

AMD is not going to use Intel fab no matter what

also everything points to current A18 being a flop, empty promises, hence the desperate need for cash flows etc

when is the A18 cpu coming out?
 
Josh128 said:
Because Nvidia and AMD are not IC fab companies. Their taking any kind of ownership in IFS makes no sense for them, unless they are bat-sh*t crazy. AMD just recently finished financially unwinding the fabs it spun off over a decade ago.
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Nothing about all of this makes any sense, it's a politically driven process. My impression is the U.S. gov wants to perform a bailout with private money, so they may push TSMC to provide the know-how guarantee and a number of other actors to provide heaps of cash and/or orders for the foundry. Pretty much everything can go wrong with such a deal, but that does not mean they're not trying to arrange it.

Just so it's clear though, I'm not trying to convince you this is the most probable scenario, I'm simply arguing we cannot rule it out.
 
Joe NYC said:
Arrow Lake also "works", but not well enough. Raptor also "works" (until id doesn't).
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Not really a good comparison for PTL. Better would be Lunar Lake. Just imagine a slightly faster Lunar Lake without on-package RAM.

Delaying it can mean two things (assuming 18A is not a total bust):

OEMs still have lots of unsold Lunar Lake or Arrow Lake H and U inventory.

Intel themselves has lots of those chips unsold and they need time to figure out how to best dump them in Europe, China and the Third World. They can't afford to flood the US market with these chips because then the price would go down compared to Ryzen AI laptops and cheap would go against their intention to target the premium sector of the laptop market. If Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake laptops become cheap, people would balk at the high prices they want to charge for PTL because they are pretending to compete with Macbooks.
 
The reason why TSMC might invest in Intel is to get a piece of the US domestic market that it's now somewhat unable to reach. That could constitute domestic manufacturing behind a tariff scheme (if these tariffs hold), it could constitute ITAR manufacturing that TSMC is excluded by law from doing, but can hold a minority stake in such a company, it could constitute taking a share of products that it otherwise can't access - Intel CPUs, etc. This is why automakers are constantly taking stakes in and partnering with their competitors, because when you have what is effectively a cartel structure with a small number of players carving up a fixed market, you want to take stakes in all of those players because they all constitute insurance policies against your market.

As to the reporting, what TSMC wants to do and what the Govt of Taiwan wants to do in this extremely fraught moment around Trumps policies may well be very different and they are certainly working together to navigate this. If a TSMC investment in Intel fabs would be a win for TSMC and for Intel and for Trump, the Taiwanese govt may ask them to deny any interest in that in order to put heat on Trump at a time when the country wants these tariffs removed. You can't invest anything in rumors in this kind of environment because they can all be true and contradictory at the same time.
 
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