I would ask
@dmens to comment here (if possible), but Intel has a VERY different design culture than . . . anyone else. Not as many synthesized blocks, and other things. AMD had experience designing according to an outside fab's rules for years before Matisse.
@moinmoin
We're still talking about the semicon industry though. The world will move on from 14nm sooner or later. When it does, it'll be a mess. I really don't know how this will play out. How much more Cascade Lake can anyone really buy?
Not dmens
, but ill give my 2 cents , regarding the first part of your quote "Not as many synthesized blocks" , almost the entire modern CPU is synth , humans cannot compete with automation due to the scale and complexity of modern CPU design , there is of course CMOS custom design in Intel , as there is CMOS custom design in any respectable design house (standard lib for anything from arbiters to queues , fifo`s , memories) , and of course Analog is never a synth i,e always custom (again , as with everyone else) , maybe you can do some custom design to a specific wide adder or something like that if you have a strict timing budget you cannot hold with synth , but its usually not how we do things unless its really a must , the big change happened few years back where they stopped using their own tools for backend (tools that you use to verify your static/dynamic timing of the design) and are now using Synopsis as are most of the industry , so moving to a different Fab is not as big of a deal as it used to be , you use the Process kit you get from the Fab that support the industry tools and run your design flows with that , RTL (the way you write the design from a logic POV) is the same with a need to move from Intel std lib to TSMC std lib , but Analog might be more work due to bigger reliance on process behavior , but again not a showstopper.
Man , I cannot believe we are even discussing this .... my first job out of uni was Intel so many years ago , so many fond memories and good times , they get a lot of flack around the internet and some of it justified but a lot of it is just ppl hating on a corporate as an entity and gloat when those entity struggle , but I had a blast working there with some great engineers that taught me a lot and just good people all around , so many startups and companies spawned from Intel engineers , seems like a eulogy or something , but it might be that Intel as we know is no longer a viable business , time for management to earn their salary which they failed to do for a while now , they need to make some good decisions and they need to make them now , there is no magic solution here , so anything they decide to do will have some drawbacks , but something needs to be done , hope they make them as some good ppl and families rely on those decisions.