Discussion Intel's past, present and future

[DrMrLordX]

Intel is trying to operate in this supposedly hands-off economy where Taiwan and TSMC are hands on. They aren't seeking market equilibrium through some mathematical model, they're seeking it by having the government support the company. And the US doesn't do that.

You may have noticed that government backing hasn't helped Samsung recently (other than to prevent them from going belly-up).

 

[fastandfurious6]

Please if he was an ultimate dictator things would lookd very different and not in a good way for the vast majority. He just happens to be term limited and doesn't give a crap about his legacy.

no, trump does massive overrreach of power, often succeeds but not always. basically if he's able to impose his will dictator-style, he will (and tries nonetheless).

literally every 'neutral' official in US public offices and policymakers etc say "the insanity is unprecedented" etc nothing like that has ever happened before, historic first

He just happens to be term limited and doesn't give a crap about his legacy.

he actually cares, he really tries to win the nobel peace prize and may even win, already brokered peace between many 50-100 years long conflicts around the world: Pakistan-India, Armenia-Azerbaijan, Thailand-Cambodia and more. Unprecedented!

 

[Thunder 57]

Can we STFU about trump? (Unless it is relevant)

 

[igor_kavinski]

I think he meant that he may have to veer off-topic to answer the question but since you are a mod, it hopefully won't result in a warning from you since you asked the question.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Can we STFU about trump?

Can trump do the same regarding Intel?

 

[Doug S]

he actually cares, he really tries to win the nobel peace prize and may even win, already brokered peace between many 50-100 years long conflicts around the world: Pakistan-India, Armenia-Azerbaijan, Thailand-Cambodia and more. Unprecedented!

He did no such thing. Pakistan & India have had little border skirmishes every few years since they split. Trump made some pronouncements, the skirmish didn't escalate because it never does (neither wants to actually fight a war) and now he's claiming he "brokered peace". Its just laughable. I don't know what he's claimed elsewhere but it is obviously gonna be the same bs. No one is going to waltz in with the IQ of a turnip who understands nothing of the history of such conflicts and resolve it overnight. Long lasting conflicts are never actively fought the whole time, and a pause in shooting is not peace.

He's desperate to win a peace prize but the idea he thinks he would ever deserve one is laughable. He's the reason Israel attacked Iran, because Netanyahu knew he could play Trump like a fiddle and get him to join in. He's the reason Israel is starving the Palestinians, because they know he'll never cut off their weapons no matter how many people they kill.

The one thing he accomplished in that conflict is guaranteeing that Iran will get the bomb. They've seen the examples of Ukraine. contrasted with the kid glove treatment North Korea gets, and they know the only way Israel and the US will leave them alone is if they manage a successful underground test to let the world know they've joined the nuclear club.

 

[fastandfurious6]

official peace agreement wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenia–Azerbaijan_peace_agreement 37 year long real conflict, real war torn area, their presidents in white house shaking hands with Trump and signing few days ago. it's a much less known conflict in the western world

you're right about india pakistan, they always have small skirmishes both claim they'll nuke the other but nothing ever happens, then Trump overly boasts about achievements and literally asks them to nominate him lmao. recently Myanmar's junta praised Trump and he removed their tariffs/sanctions lol!

you're right he's fully enabling genocide (biden did way worse, kamala said she would continue exactly the same) but it will end soon, the tipping point is right here. there is a theory that Trump wasn't able to just give the middle finger from day one, they would delete him. don't get me wrong I'm aware he's self claiming he's their biggest friend etc but don't underestimate his intelligence

Ukraine-Russia is more complex to resolve because of EU warmongers (especially leaders of EU commission who also 100% enable the genocide...), west Europe wants more war, they don't want it to end. The claims "Putin wants to conquer Europe" are just scaremongering, he simply doesn't have any means to do it. But I believe peace will be brokered in this soon too.

North Korea is North Korea though South Korea now has a real non-puppet president and tensions between North and South are decreasing.

On Taiwan-China Trump may distance himself from Taiwan and may probably enable China to reintegrate it without any war pending negotiations.

(don't get me wrong I'm neither pro-trump nor rightwing! He causes a lot of harm especially domestically in USA. But it may be real he may do all above. for him the nobel peace prize is probably higher on his list than anything else)

My 2 cents! Let's see what the future brings. I'll quote my post in the near future

now back on topic from geopolitics intel to Intel chips haha

 

[DrMrLordX]

Can we STFU about trump?

Try not to talk about Trump challenge! Woops we already failed.

 

[511]

So this is the 'some non-economic benefit' I alluded to above. I could potentially see Apple doing it as a hedge against tariffs/currency/etc. depending on where they see the macroeconomic winds blowing. It wouldn't save them money, but it would mitigate certain kinds of risk. But it wouldn't solve any of the problems anyone here is looking to solve.

The other choice would be Tesla as an AI play who could also pick up SpaceX as a customer provided the latter took on a larger defense contractor role, or maybe Tesla does anyway given some subset of investors have already decided that making cars is dragging the company down. All of the US DOD AI dreams depend on having a domestic manufacturer and I'm not sure Nvidia in an Arizona TSMC plant will cut it. They can always make that exception, but may not want to.

Do you think TSMC will be qualified as a Supplier for DOD even if it's made in USA? It's not an ally nationa like Japan/Australia.

What I see is Chaos and one smart one once said

Let chaos reign then rein in chaos

You may have noticed that government backing hasn't helped Samsung recently (other than to prevent them from going belly-up).

Samsung has tech issue due to IBM IP a reason I don't think Rapidus will succeed.
Intel's yield is way better than Samsung the problem in Intel's case is Culture they never have been a foundry and the Ecosystem which will take time btw they paid Synopsys/Cadence 9 Figures for the IP.

also lol this thread went from Intel US to Asia Pakistan 🤣

 

[igor_kavinski]

also lol this thread went from Intel US to Asia Pakistan 🤣

There's this in India: https://www.techcircle.in/2023/12/21/intel-sets-up-r-d-lab-at-ctrls-datacenters-for-chip-design

 

[OneEng2]

Phoronix reports more cutting on the Linux engineering part:

Additional Intel Linux Drivers Left Orphaned & Maintainers Let Go - Phoronix Forums

Phoronix: Additional Intel Linux Drivers Left Orphaned & Maintainers Let Go Well, it's an unpleasant afternoon in Linux land with more signs of the ongoing impact from Intel's corporate-wide restructuring. Just after writing about Intel's CPU temperature monitoring driver now left...

www.phoronix.com

I'm more convinced that Tan is here to break down Intel. They aren't firing just middle managers, if anything they are doing anything BUT that. Plus the 50% margin comment is cringe. Little strength that made Intel what they are is being broken down.

A target of 50% margin is a good one IMO. Intel has gotten itself into the denial phase of its development where they hold market share at all cost. This strategy, if continued, will absolutely bankrupt the company and result in a fire sale of their assets.

That's pretty much what I was saying. Intel Products has a future, but Tan is killing that to keep the Fabs going for a couple extra years.

The fab can't make ends meet with only Intel as a customer. breaking off the fab to a new company is the only solution.

On the other subjects, any company that dabbles in politics generally alienates half of the US market (dumb). Any company that makes strategic plans on a single administrations direction is doomed in the long run.

One trend I can see that will span both parties here in the US is on-shoring critical semiconductor tech. Intel would be wise to leverage this trend.

 

[Thibsie]

Wise ?

 

[Win2012R2]

It's 350-400W as well

Yeah, that's way too much if you ask me, but this is the way things going - maybe N2 will get things better

 

[511]

The fab can't make ends meet with only Intel as a customer. breaking off the fab to a new company is the only solution.

they can simply ramp down fab after 18A/AP and give a middle finger to Uncle SAM they can sustain 18A/AP with Intel Products but not 14A

 

[511]

I'm more convinced that Tan is here to break down Intel. They aren't firing just middle managers, if anything they are doing anything BUT that. Plus the 50% margin comment is cringe. Little strength that made Intel what they are is being broken down.

i don't think it's that cringe remember this 50% is for Cost to manufacture the product you need it to achieve this much it doesn't include R&d and other expenses this will hamper their Entry into newer markets also

 

[DavidC1]

i don't think it's that cringe remember this 50% is for Cost to manufacture the product you need it to achieve this much it doesn't include R&d and other expenses this will hamper their Entry into newer markets also

Knowing history of Intel plus who he is firing, I don't trust what he's saying.

Like someone said, you can't do precise layoffs without being in the company for some time. It was all lies.

 

[johnsonwax]

You may have noticed that government backing hasn't helped Samsung recently (other than to prevent them from going belly-up).

Did I ever say it was a guarantee? Don't strawman. My point is that the US is leaving Intel to the whims of a market that has a lot of national intervention tipping the scales. That's all.

 

[511]

Knowing history of Intel plus who he is firing, I don't trust what he's saying.

Like someone said, you can't do precise layoffs without being in the company for some time. It was all lies.

Naa it's impossible to do precise layoffs my company had a layoff round where they fired the team for one of the things no other team knows how to do they were hired back 😅🤣

 

[johnsonwax]

Do you think TSMC will be qualified as a Supplier for DOD even if it's made in USA? It's not an ally nationa like Japan/Australia.\

If we lose Intel we won't have a choice, will we? It's not a sign of national strength to lose sovereignty in that way. Similar arguments can be made around most of the DOD infrastructure, ship building, rare earths, etc. Similar concerns have been had about Boeing as they aren't in as dire straits as Intel, but seem to be suffering from some similar problems, mainly a primary competitor (Airbus) with significant government interventionist support.

Note, my prior comment regarding more government intervention isn't just directed at government taking a more direct stake in the success of key national industries, but also defanging the investor class through bans on stock buybacks, significant increases on income and wealth redistribution and the like. If these companies can stop doing so much dumb sh*t to appease investors and return to a focus on long term strength that would also have substantial benefits. That's more of what Boeings problem has been, and Intels $152B in share buybacks is cash they now desperately need (I mean, that's 3x what Congress allocated in the CHIPS act). TSMC doesn't materially waste money on that.

 

[jpiniero]

If we lose Intel we won't have a choice, will we?

Samsung's US fabs maybe.

 

[johnsonwax]

One trend I can see that will span both parties here in the US is on-shoring critical semiconductor tech. Intel would be wise to leverage this trend.

Sort of? On the left it's still 'let's dump infinite taxpayer money into the market and hope it corrects' and that's not really going to work. And on the right it's words, but none of the actions align with it. There are still tariffs on equipment to build out a fab, steel, machinery. A 15% tariff on ASML is tens of millions per machine. Are we supposed to build a competitor to ASML first and then build out the fabs? You have to pick your battles and we aren't doing that. Again, my son's company is moving their manufacturing out of the US (and they aren't the only one) because with most of their customers (who are US companies) having their manufacturing outside the US, the reciprocal tariffs on exports are most costly than the tariffs for the parts going into US factories. So really, there is no trend on the right to on-shore because none of it yet makes sense. Note, almost all of TSMCs AZ production is earmarked for parts destined for China, not for the US. It's unclear if Apple wanted to assemble products in the US if they could even get domestic production given that the only way Nvidia and AMD can export to China is to hold that fab capacity. They can't shift it to Taiwan, so they'd have to give up the market, and they've already agreed to pay a 15% export tariff to hold that market. None of this really makes sense from a strategic perspective. And like I said, Democrats are still lost in the weeds. They have some people who understand the assignment and they're making inroads, but that's a far cry from the party changing their philosophy here.

 

[johnsonwax]

Samsung's US fabs maybe.

Maybe, but they're a worse choice in a lot of ways. At least choosing Samsung for US military tech wouldn't agitate China. Slapping a struggling Intel foundries onto GF or Micron is still an option, but that's an even bigger lift than just helping Intel now.

 

[511]

Note, my prior comment regarding more government intervention isn't just directed at government taking a more direct stake in the success of key national industries, but also defanging the investor class through bans on stock buybacks, significant increases on income and wealth redistribution and the like. If these companies can stop doing so much dumb sh*t to appease investors and return to a focus on long term strength that would also have substantial benefits. That's more of what Boeings problem has been, and Intels $152B in share buybacks is cash they now desperately need (I mean, that's 3x what Congress allocated in the CHIPS act). TSMC doesn't materially waste money on that.

well the dumb s*** Intel did is bar none no one comes close also TSMC didn't needed money to build fab in US they would have given more money to Micron/Intel

 

[johnsonwax]

well the dumb s*** Intel did is bar none no one comes close also TSMC didn't needed money to build fab in US they would have given more money to Micron/Intel

I don't agree with that. Intel had a business model and their decisions were true to that model. The model needed to change, and investors were never going to be down with that change - investors never are for incumbents. So to the degree they stuck with that model for too long, yeah. Their node failure is the biggest one you can hang on them. Most of the others I think were collateral damage from that business model that didn't fit the world they lived in.

They've finally ripped off that old business model and now we have to see what they can do with one which is more realistic to the market. They're likely going to be fine on the design side, they still have a lot going for them there and the path forward is pretty straightforward, it's the foundry side thats the big question.

As to TSMC financial support, yeah, I don't like how that whole thing played out. It might have been necessary for other reasons (if China were to invade Taiwan, the US would be wise to be seen as the preferred place for their talent to decamp to, and that might be a wise investment) but I think a less erratic and more comprehensive set of policies could have achieved similar goals over time. In the past Democrats and Republicans at least could have relied on their policies not being completely thrown out the window with a change in administration, but that doesn't apply with Trump. There's no possibility of maintaining a doctrine with him on the scene (or Vance if he were to succeed - same problem). So the US can't do anything strategic unless they get it done in 4 years time or less.

 

[511]

I don't agree with that. Intel had a business model and their decisions were true to that model. The model needed to change, and investors were never going to be down with that change - investors never are for incumbents. So to the degree they stuck with that model for too long, yeah. Their node failure is the biggest one you can hang on them. Most of the others I think were collateral damage from that business model that didn't fit the world they lived in.

They've finally ripped off that old business model and now we have to see what they can do with one which is more realistic to the market. They're likely going to be fine on the design side, they still have a lot going for them there and the path forward is pretty straightforward, it's the foundry side thats the big question.

Intel is still IDM their operating Model has changed substantially pre gelsinger the fab has good future as well if they stop screwing around with the PDKs