Discussion Leading Edge Foundry Node advances (TSMC, Samsung Foundry, Intel) - [2020 - 2025]

DisEnchantment · Apr 24, 2020

TSMC's N7 EUV is now in its second year of production and N5 is contributing to revenue for TSMC this quarter. N3 is scheduled for 2022 and I believe they have a good chance to reach that target.

N7 performance is more or less understood.

This year and next year TSMC is mainly increasing capacity to meet demands.

TSMC Radically Boosts CapEx to Expand Production Capacities, To Reach $14B For 2019

www.anandtech.com

For Samsung the nodes are basically the same from 7LPP to 4 LPE, they just add incremental scaling boosters while the bulk of the tech is the same.

Samsung is already shipping 7LPP and will ship 6LPP in H2. Hopefully they fix any issues if at all.
They have two more intermediate nodes in between before going to 3GAE, most likely 5LPE will ship next year but for 4LPE it will probably be back to back with 3GAA since 3GAA is a parallel development with 7LPP enhancements.

Samsung’s Aggressive EUV Plans: 6nm Production in H2, 5nm & 4nm On Track

www.anandtech.com

Samsung's 3GAA will go for HVM in 2022 most likely, similar timeframe to TSMC's N3.
There are major differences in how the transistor will be fabricated due to the GAA but density for sure Samsung will be behind N3.
But there might be advantages for Samsung with regards to power and performance, so it may be better suited for some applications.
But for now we don't know how much of this is true and we can only rely on the marketing material.

This year there should be a lot more available wafers due to lack of demand from Smartphone vendors and increased capacity from TSMC and Samsung.
Lots of SoCs which dont need to be top end will be fabbed with N7 or 7LPP/6LPP instead of N5, so there will be lots of wafers around.

Most of the current 7nm designs are far from the advertized density from TSMC and Samsung. There is still potential for density increase compared to currently shipping products.
N5 is going to be the leading foundry node for the next couple of years.

For a lot of fabless companies out there, the processes and capacity available are quite good.

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FEEL FREE TO CREATE A NEW THREAD FOR 2025+ OUTLOOK, I WILL LINK IT HERE

Tuna-Fish · Feb 19, 2025

511 said:
Oh Boy here is the SRAM Shmoo Plot as well for both 18A and N2View attachment 117612 View attachment 117613

That's at least one measure where Intel has a decent lead. Gonna make for nice fat and fast L1 and L2 caches.

lightisgood · Feb 19, 2025

Oh Boy here is the SRAM Shmoo Plot as well for both 18A and N2

N2: 4.2GHz@1.05V
i18A: 4.2GHz@0.75V

In other words, i18A provides 2x performance per watt in SRAM.

Saylick · Feb 19, 2025

511 said:
Oh Boy here is the SRAM Shmoo Plot as well for both 18A and N2View attachment 117612 View attachment 117613

Is Intel's SRAM also double pumped?

511 · Feb 19, 2025

Saylick said:
Is Intel's SRAM also double pumped?

I don't know

511 · Feb 19, 2025

lightisgood said:
N2: 4.2GHz@1.05V
i18A: 4.2GHz@0.75V

In other words, i18A provides 2x performance per watt in SRAM.

How is it 2X it is 1.4X also we don't know the current

ajsdkflsdjfio · Feb 19, 2025

https://twitter.com/x/status/1892249125120262588

Crazy to see 18A actually matching TSMC contemporary nodes for once, even beating it in some areas AND coming to market earlier. There's still tons of questions/work to be done like building capacity and EDA/IP, but it really calls into question why the board didn't hold on a little longer to let the turnaround plan come into fruition and why Frank Yeary has been going behind Pat's back for nearly a year trying to sell off foundry. Imagine if Pat had the full support of the board and people saw the vision, maybe more of Intel's planned fabs would be underway right now and 18A would have more capacity going into 2026-2028. Especially with a more supportive presidential administration in the next 4 years, Intel really has a chance here to regain leadership not just technologically but financially too. Let's just hope the board doesn't sell intel for parts to try to appease shareholders.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1891957884277096945

DZero · Feb 19, 2025

ajsdkflsdjfio said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1892249125120262588

Crazy to see 18A actually matching TSMC contemporary nodes for once, even beating it in some areas AND coming to market earlier. There's still tons of questions/work to be done like building capacity and EDA/IP, but it really calls into question why the board didn't hold on a little longer to let the turnaround plan come into fruition and why Frank Yeary has been going behind Pat's back for nearly a year trying to sell off foundry. Imagine if Pat had the full support of the board and people saw the vision, maybe more of Intel's planned fabs would be underway right now and 18A would have more capacity going into 2026-2028. Especially with a more supportive presidential administration in the next 4 years, Intel really has a chance here to regain leadership not just technologically but financially too. Let's just hope the board doesn't sell intel for parts to try to appease shareholders.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1891957884277096945

Maybe they might try to convince Trump to avoid that scenario. But the issue? Intel is not a bigger target since has a very strategic chip and process that can save them and have the advantage all over again.

adamge · Feb 19, 2025

ajsdkflsdjfio said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1892249125120262588

... it really calls into question why the board didn't hold on a little longer to let the turnaround plan come into fruition and why Frank Yeary has been going behind Pat's back for nearly a year trying to sell off foundry. Imagine if Pat had the full support of the board and people saw the vision, ...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1891957884277096945

This is the part I can't wrap my head around. Intel is and has always been a cutting edge foundry company. It doesn't take a visionary leap by the board to continue doing what they've always done. Why did they fire Pat for doing what they've always done? Pat wasn't taking them anywhere revolutionary.

I can only wrap my head around this if they fired Pat because they want to do something DIFFERENT than they've always done. But I still haven't seen what the different plan is.

Markfw · Feb 19, 2025

adamge said:
This is the part I can't wrap my head around. Intel is and has always been a cutting edge foundry company. It doesn't take a visionary leap by the board to continue doing what they've always done. Why did they fire Pat for doing what they've always done? Pat wasn't taking them anywhere revolutionary.

I can only wrap my head around this if they fired Pat because they want to do something DIFFERENT than they've always done. But I still haven't seen what the different plan is.

"What they have always done" has not worked well for the last several years. Look at the financials ! Look at the market share, especially in DC.

ajsdkflsdjfio · Feb 19, 2025

Markfw said:
"What they have always done" has not worked well for the last several years. Look at the financials ! Look at the market share, especially in DC.

What do you define as "What they've always done"? I'd argue that what occurred in the past decade at intel was far from typical intel behavior with a string of non-tech background CEOs and a huge emphasis on financials rather than hardware dominance. If you look at the decisions Intel has made during it's rise and it's peak, versus the late 2000s onward you can really see a difference. IMO it was actually Intel straying off their tried and true path that led them to where they are now, not the other way around.

Pat returning Intel to become a leading edge foundry is key for Intel to survive. The foundry is the backbone of everything, and being behind 3 years + on node technology has had horrible effects on every aspect of their business. The financials are ofc going to be bad because A. you have to spend tons of money to catch up with TSMC, and B. you begin to fully sow the consequences of having a lagging foundry in a company where the foundry is the basis of all operations, hence the poor product performance. The fab has been at the core of Intel for it's entire existence and is still the core of it's business. If you remove the fab, Intel becomes only but a shell of it's former self and loses it's only distinguishing trait from all the other chip companies out there. Unless you think their design teams are a cut above, I really don't see how that is a sound strategy.

Hitman928 · Feb 19, 2025

adamge said:
This is the part I can't wrap my head around. Intel is and has always been a cutting edge foundry company. It doesn't take a visionary leap by the board to continue doing what they've always done. Why did they fire Pat for doing what they've always done? Pat wasn't taking them anywhere revolutionary.

I can only wrap my head around this if they fired Pat because they want to do something DIFFERENT than they've always done. But I still haven't seen what the different plan is.

Pat was fired because he promised 5 nodes in 4 years, taking foundry leadership back in such a way that customers would be begging to use Intel to make their chips. To make his vision happen, he was allowed to spend ridiculous amounts of money, much more than Intel had to spend, both developing the nodes and increasing capacity for all the expected volume. He got somewhat close to 5 nodes in 4 years, you could argue foundry leadership (I would argue they haven't taken leadership where it counts), but no customers. It got so bad that Intel started to have to not only cancel peripheral projects and non-profitable efforts on the design side, but sell off profitable pieces of the company and slash design side budgets just to stay afloat while giving the foundry enough time to both get technological leadership and significant customer buy-in. Remember, Intel 3 was supposed to be the first node where they started to bring in external customers into IFS, but that never happened and so far, they don't have anything significant lined up for 18a either. At some point, it seems the board said no more and gave Pat the axe and started down a different path.

ajsdkflsdjfio · Feb 19, 2025

Hitman928 said:
Pat was fired because he promised 5 nodes in 4 years, taking foundry leadership back in such a way that customers would be begging to use Intel to make their chips. To make his vision happen, he was allowed to spend ridiculous amounts of money, much more than Intel had to spend, both developing the nodes and increasing capacity for all the expected volume. He got somewhat close to 5 nodes in 4 years, you could argue foundry leadership (I would argue they haven't taken leadership where it counts), but no customers. It got so bad that Intel started to have to not only cancel peripheral projects and non-profitable efforts on the design side, but sell off profitable pieces of the company and slash design side budgets just to stay afloat while giving the foundry enough time to both get technological leadership and significant customer buy-in. Remember, Intel 3 was supposed to be the first node where they started to bring in external customers into IFS, but that never happened and so far, they don't have anything significant lined up for 18a either. At some point, it seems the board said no more and gave Pat the axe and started down a different path.

I don't recall Pat, or anyone at intel for that matter, ever claiming that they would have a line of customers immediately as the 5n4y plan finishes. I've seen various reports from Intel themselves that foundry would only turn a profit in 2027-2028 and that they expect to be No.2 foundry by 2030, indicating that they never expected to have enough foundry customers/capacity by 2025 anyways so I don't really see how anything has changed?

Also the idea that Intel has 0 customers is completely false, just a quick googling shows that Intel has multi billion dollars worth of agreements lined up for 18A already. OFC this doesn't mean all that much in the grand scheme of things since it's not nearly enough to pay off foundry expenditures, but the picture you paint of Intel building out all this 18A capacity and having no one show up to use it is just completely false. In fact it may be the opposite, that Intel doesn't have enough cutting edge capacity going forward which is it's own issue entirely. Intel isn't in a great spot right now but compare that to the alternative if Pat hadn't fixed foundry.

Hitman928 · Feb 19, 2025

ajsdkflsdjfio said:
I don't recall Pat, or anyone at intel for that matter, ever claiming that they would have a line of customers immediately as the 5n4y plan finishes. I've seen various reports from Intel themselves that foundry would only turn a profit in 2027-2028 and that they expect to be No.2 foundry by 2030, indicating that they never expected to have enough foundry customers/capacity by 2025 anyways so I don't really see how anything has changed?

Go back to early on, the talk about not being profitable until 2027 or later didn't happen until a couple of years down the line. More specifically, look at their touted customer engagements for IFS, talks of customer pipelines, and insane capex spending on foundry capacity which they later had to suspend (due to no customers). You don't spend that much money on building foundry capacity, far beyond what Intel could use, if you don't expect major customer revenue to be coming in soon.

ajsdkflsdjfio said:
Also the idea that Intel has 0 customers is completely false, just a quick googling shows that Intel has multi billion dollars worth of agreements lined up for 18A already. OFC this doesn't mean all that much in the grand scheme of things since it's not nearly enough to pay off foundry expenditures, but the picture you paint of Intel building out all this 18A capacity and having no one show up to use it is just completely false. In fact it may be the opposite, that Intel doesn't have enough cutting edge capacity going forward which is it's own issue entirely. Intel isn't in a great spot right now but compare that to the alternative if Pat hadn't fixed foundry.

What I said is they don't have significant wafer deals lined up, which they don't. The vast majority of Intel foundry revenue thus far and for the next couple of years at least, is on the packaging side, not wafers. It is also "lifetime" revenue meaning they are counting several years into the future as one number. This is no where near good enough to fund the type of leading edge foundry goals they had planned (i.e., compete with TSMC). Again, they are literally stopping fab build-outs in multiple locations because they don't have the money or the expected customer revenue coming in to make it work.

I've said before, I think Pat did some good things at Intel while he was there. He also did some terrible things and his failure to work within a realistic budget and counting on customers before contracts were signed were two of the big ones. It wasn't just on the fab side that he did this either, same thing happened on the AI products side of things.

lightisgood · Feb 19, 2025

ajsdkflsdjfio said:
Crazy to see 18A actually matching TSMC contemporary nodes for once, even beating it in some areas AND coming to market earlier. There's still tons of questions/work to be done like building capacity and EDA/IP, but it really calls into question why the board didn't hold on a little longer to let the turnaround plan come into fruition and why Frank Yeary has been going behind Pat's back for nearly a year trying to sell off foundry. Imagine if Pat had the full support of the board and people saw the vision, maybe more of Intel's planned fabs would be underway right now and 18A would have more capacity going into 2026-2028. Especially with a more supportive presidential administration in the next 4 years, Intel really has a chance here to regain leadership not just technologically but financially too. Let's just hope the board doesn't sell intel for parts to try to appease shareholders.

Today, Intel is suffering from poor Capex and R&D in 2010's.
Yes. Brian did it.
And he had thrown a lot of money to stockholder as dividend.

Today, Wall streat's people are saying "Sell IFS".
They became the rich in 2010's by the kindness of Brian. lol.
I think there is no cure for a fool.

This is not only the plot of Intel but also American manufacturing.

jdubs03 · Feb 19, 2025

I bet these numbers will raise people’s eyebrows. We’re talking being competitive now if not leading in cutting edge nodes AND in products before the competition by 6+ months (sound like a broken record now). That means something. If yields are solid, I would suspect they’ll get some traction with big players.

MoistOintment · Feb 19, 2025

Hitman928 said:
Pat was fired because he promised 5 nodes in 4 years, taking foundry leadership back in such a way that customers would be begging to use Intel to make their chips. To make his vision happen, he was allowed to spend ridiculous amounts of money, much more than Intel had to spend, both developing the nodes and increasing capacity for all the expected volume. He got somewhat close to 5 nodes in 4 years, you could argue foundry leadership (I would argue they haven't taken leadership where it counts), but no customers. It got so bad that Intel started to have to not only cancel peripheral projects and non-profitable efforts on the design side, but sell off profitable pieces of the company and slash design side budgets just to stay afloat while giving the foundry enough time to both get technological leadership and significant customer buy-in. Remember, Intel 3 was supposed to be the first node where they started to bring in external customers into IFS, but that never happened and so far, they don't have anything significant lined up for 18a either. At some point, it seems the board said no more and gave Pat the axe and started down a different path.

If we're speculating, without evidence, on the specific reason for Pat's termination, I'm betting my money on 'completely dropping the ball to capitalize on the AI boom' and missing out on the rising tide that lifted pretty much all semiconductor stock except Intel.

Intel's financials were hurt even more so by the fact that Xeon marketshare and ASPs have deteriorated faster than expected vs Epyc combined with growing datacenter investment pivoting hard and fast towards AI/dGPU with nothing from Intel to really capitalize on it.

The 5N4Y plan with external customers trailing internal adoption was the pitch Gelsinger gave the board when he was hired. If Intel had a competitive AI product to at least keep DCAI profitable during that time, the heavy Capex expenditure into fabs wouldn't have been nearly as painful.

ajsdkflsdjfio · Feb 20, 2025

Hitman928 said:
Go back to early on, the talk about not being profitable until 2027 or later didn't happen until a couple of years down the line. More specifically, look at their touted customer engagements for IFS, talks of customer pipelines, and insane capex spending on foundry capacity which they later had to suspend (due to no customers). You don't spend that much money on building foundry capacity, far beyond what Intel could use, if you don't expect major customer revenue to be coming in soon.

I genuinely cannot find any material claiming that intel planned to turn a profit with their foundry by 2025, the year where 5N4Y was to finish. I browsed through articles from the date of Pat Gelsinger signing on until 12/31/2021 and found only claims about process leadership.

They only claimed process leadership by 2025 for a reason, because they understand that after process leadership comes building out fabs, attracting customers etc etc. Even with customers it takes a while to turn a profit from such large investments, so I don't think anybody expected foundry to profit remotely close to the time they finished the 5N4Y plan. The demand for 18a thus far is likely less than what Pat might've imagined it to be, but this isn't set in stone and might change for the better in the next year or so as 18a draws interest from more people given it's relatively impressive specifications.

Intel 3 might've been the node they first planned to bring on foundry customers, but 18A was their golden egg so to speak, the turning point where people might change to team blue. The node where they advertise that they finally caught up with TSMC and the node where they expect EDA to be on parity (whatever that means) with TSMC, allowing easier onboarding of customers.

Either way I think rather than foundry being profitable or not, the main issue with Pat's tenure (whether directly his fault or not) in the eyes of the board was the poor performance of the company otherwise like with Gaudi and bleeding market share in DCAI. If even just their DCAI/Consumer products held the status quo during Pat's plan, I feel that the board would've been 10x happier and gave him more time to carry out his plan. Regardless, I think that these stem from #1 a poorly functioning foundry, #2 lackluster engineering teams. These issues largely predate Pat, but I would say that he definitely did not do enough to plug the leaks happening outside of foundry. But at the very least Intel design teams seem to be releasing mostly on time after meteor lake/sapphire rapids. I mean if you look at some of their delays for their products in 2010-2020 they are on the magnitude of years rather than months, which were affordable to intel back then, but would kill intel right now.

What I said is they don't have significant wafer deals lined up, which they don't. The vast majority of Intel foundry revenue thus far and for the next couple of years at least, is on the packaging side, not wafers. It is also "lifetime" revenue meaning they are counting several years into the future as one number. This is no where near good enough to fund the type of leading edge foundry goals they had planned (i.e., compete with TSMC). Again, they are literally stopping fab build-outs in multiple locations because they don't have the money or the expected customer revenue coming in to make it work.

I'd agree with this and with the idea that Pat was too optimistic with building out fabs, not necessarily because of a lack of customers but just in general a lack of capital due to poor intel performance and other factors like German subsidies stalling out and delaying of CHIPS act funding. I mean if you look at Intel's projected volumes for their nodes, 18A will only be a fourth of their overall capacity by 2026, and EUV nodes as a whole only a third. I think they could do with more capacity, but obviously they don't have the capital to build right now. He carried out a game plan that would've been great for Intel 5-10 years earlier, but painful for current Intel. Either way, Intel before Pat was trending downwards even if they were starting at a higher position. If they can hold onto foundry and survive unbroken through 2025, I think they'll have passed through the valley and begun to climb the mountain.

oak8292 · Feb 20, 2025

ajsdkflsdjfio said:
I genuinely cannot find any material claiming that intel planned to turn a profit with their foundry by 2025, the year where 5N4Y was to finish. I browsed through articles from the date of Pat Gelsinger signing on until 12/31/2021 and found only claims about process leadership.

View attachment 117670
They only claimed process leadership by 2025 for a reason, because they understand that after process leadership comes building out fabs, attracting customers etc etc. Even with customers it takes a while to turn a profit from such large investments, so I don't think anybody expected foundry to profit remotely close to the time they finished the 5N4Y plan. The demand for 18a thus far is likely less than what Pat might've imagined it to be, but this isn't set in stone and might change for the better in the next year or so as 18a draws interest from more people given it's relatively impressive specifications.

Intel 3 might've been the node they first planned to bring on foundry customers, but 18A was their golden egg so to speak, the turning point where people might change to team blue. The node where they advertise that they finally caught up with TSMC and the node where they expect EDA to be on parity (whatever that means) with TSMC, allowing easier onboarding of customers.

View attachment 117673

Either way I think rather than foundry being profitable or not, the main issue with Pat's tenure (whether directly his fault or not) in the eyes of the board was the poor performance of the company otherwise like with Gaudi and bleeding market share in DCAI. If even just their DCAI/Consumer products held the status quo during Pat's plan, I feel that the board would've been 10x happier and gave him more time to carry out his plan. Regardless, I think that these stem from #1 a poorly functioning foundry, #2 lackluster engineering teams. These issues largely predate Pat, but I would say that he definitely did not do enough to plug the leaks happening outside of foundry. But at the very least Intel design teams seem to be releasing mostly on time after meteor lake/sapphire rapids. I mean if you look at some of their delays for their products in 2010-2020 they are on the magnitude of years rather than months, which were affordable to intel back then, but would kill intel right now.

I'd agree with this and with the idea that Pat was too optimistic with building out fabs, not necessarily because of a lack of customers but just in general a lack of capital due to poor intel performance and other factors like German subsidies stalling out and delaying of CHIPS act funding. I mean if you look at Intel's projected volumes for their nodes, 18A will only be a fourth of their overall capacity by 2026, and EUV nodes as a whole only a third. I think they could do with more capacity, but obviously they don't have the capital to build right now. He carried out a game plan that would've been great for Intel 5-10 years earlier, but painful for current Intel. Either way, Intel before Pat was trending downwards even if they were starting at a higher position. If they can hold onto foundry and survive unbroken through 2025, I think they'll have passed through the valley and begun to climb the mountain.

My two cents. Missing 20A is probably a bigger deal than let on. It delayed the return to Intel manufacturing by a year. The Apollo deal in Ireland is probably struggling to meet minimum wafer contracts for 3 and 4 nm. The Arizona plant with Brookfield also has wafer supply agreements for 20A and 18A? The delays in starting Arizona may have also caused problems in getting government money. Wasn’t Intel last to receive funding because they weren’t meeting obligations.

““[There is fear that] Intel is going to take chips money, build an empty shell of a factory and then never actually open it, because they don’t have customers,” said former Commerce Department official Caitlin Legacki.“

Intel CEO is "frustrated" with CHIPS Act payout progress — Intel has received $0 from the $8.5 billion that the US government promised

“My simple message is, ‘Let’s get it finished,’” said Gelsinger in an interview with The New York Times.

www.tomshardware.com

Pat has wafer supply agreements with two SCIPs and TSMC and obligations with the government. All of this may be generating a financial strait jacket unless everything goes exactly to plan and wafer volumes pick up.

lightisgood · Feb 20, 2025

oak8292 said:
My two cents. Missing 20A is probably a bigger deal than let on. It delayed the return to Intel manufacturing by a year. The Apollo deal in Ireland is probably struggling to meet minimum wafer contracts for 3 and 4 nm. The Arizona plant with Brookfield also has wafer supply agreements for 20A and 18A? The delays in starting Arizona may have also caused problems in getting government money. Wasn’t Intel last to receive funding because they weren’t meeting obligations.

““[There is fear that] Intel is going to take chips money, build an empty shell of a factory and then never actually open it, because they don’t have customers,” said former Commerce Department official Caitlin Legacki.“

Intel CEO is "frustrated" with CHIPS Act payout progress — Intel has received $0 from the $8.5 billion that the US government promised

“My simple message is, ‘Let’s get it finished,’” said Gelsinger in an interview with The New York Times.

www.tomshardware.com

Pat has wafer supply agreements with two SCIPs and TSMC and obligations with the government. All of this may be generating a financial strait jacket unless everything goes exactly to plan and wafer volumes pick up.

lol.
You simply blame the failure of the Biden Administration on Pat & Intel.

In the fact, Pat's Intel spent multi-billion dollar for Capex and R&D in 2021-2024, however, there were practically zero subsidy from the CHIPS Act.

I'd like to compare Intel with TSMC.
TSMC has enjoyed the benefits of subsidy from the Taiwanese Goverment for many years.
Taiwanese Gov. had great foresight as the silicon shield strategy.

uzzi38 · Feb 20, 2025

Saylick said:
Is Intel's SRAM also double pumped?

Cheese said it's single (he's also at ISSCC). He also said they don't know what temperature Intel's SRAM shmoo plot is at as well, there's one for HDC at -10c but no mention of what temperature the SRAM plot is at.

Saylick · Feb 20, 2025

uzzi38 said:
Cheese said it's single (he's also at ISSCC). He also said they don't know what temperature Intel's SRAM shmoo plot is at as well, there's one for HDC at -10c but no mention of what temperature the SRAM plot is at.

Then the two plots cannot be directly compared.

uzzi38 · Feb 20, 2025

Saylick said:
Then the two plots cannot be directly compared.

Yep, they can't be compared at all.

Both plots are both very, very good though. Like it's really good signs for both N2 and 18A, they both look like they're in great condition.

511 · Feb 20, 2025

MoistOintment said:
If we're speculating, without evidence, on the specific reason for Pat's termination, I'm betting my money on 'completely dropping the ball to capitalize on the AI boom' and missing out on the rising tide that lifted pretty much all semiconductor stock except Intel.

Not capitalizing on AI Boom was partly Swan's as well Pat's biggest fault was cancelling Rialto Bridge they don't have a DC GPU to sell also overspending on FABs

MoistOintment said:
Intel's financials were hurt even more so by the fact that Xeon marketshare and ASPs have deteriorated faster than expected vs Epyc combined with growing datacenter investment pivoting hard and fast towards AI/dGPU with nothing from Intel to really capitalize on it.

The 5N4Y plan with external customers trailing internal adoption was the pitch Gelsinger gave the board when he was hired. If Intel had a competitive AI product to at least keep DCAI profitable during that time, the heavy Capex expenditure into fabs wouldn't have been nearly as painful.

Agreed not having a competitive GPU to sell in DC was an issue.

lightisgood · Feb 20, 2025

511 said:
Not capitalizing on AI Boom was partly Swan's as well Pat's biggest fault was cancelling Rialto Bridge they don't have a DC GPU to sell also overspending on FABs
Agreed not having a competitive GPU to sell in DC was an issue.

Frankly speaking, the raw performance of Ponte Vecchio is the garbage.
Pat compared Rialto Bridge with Gandi 3.
And then Gaudi 3 survived.
I think this decision was basically right.

511 · Feb 20, 2025

lightisgood said:
Frankly speaking, the raw performance of Ponte Vecchio is the garbage.
Pat compared Rialto Bridge with Gandi 3.
And then Gaudi 3 survived.
I think this decision was basically right.

This was right in terms of raw performance but not in terms of software and stuff the stuff that runs in PVC will run on Client GPUs/Falcon shores(internally) and Jaguar as well in case of Gaudi it's a different case.

Discussion Leading Edge Foundry Node advances (TSMC, Samsung Foundry, Intel) - [2020 - 2025]

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