I hate to say it, but I think Intel WILL fail. I see no wonderful products, no real vison for products that might change that, and still the "too big a company with too many managers and not enough workers" mentality. I had hope until recently, but I will now admit, I see no other alternative than failure. I actually hope I am wrong. we NEED 2 big companies to make competition work !
I feel like you're all greatly exaggerating the amount of money poured into that. It was/is a lot, but it certainly isn't as much as it was at Intel's height already, and it importantly isn't enough to justify Intel's horrid margins. They just have a poor product, node and P core right now.Intel is not going out of business. I think people are leaping to all sorts of conclusions. Even if there is trouble with Intel manufacturing, even if Intel shuts it down or sells it for $1, there is still Intel "Products", which can exist as a fabless company.
I think what is going away are vast slush funds Intel used for bribery and market manipulation. Not because Intel has, all of the sudden, become an ethical company. Intel simply does not have the money.
It isn't clear from the news coming out of Intel, but my belief is that for a bit there Intel was considering whether to continue fabbing chips at all. That would explain the large capacity buys from TSMC and passing up on delivery of EUV scanners they had previously ordered. When Gelsinger came in he re-committed Intel to fabbing chips, but that required the scale of becoming a real foundry (not the laudhable halfhearted attempt a decade ago) and catching up with TSMC process-wise.
The problem with trying to do five processes in four years when you only have four fabs is that you're going to tie up a lot of that capacity in upgrades and preproduction activities before you're ready for mass production. Those nodes are all short lived - it isn't like there were a lot of products on Intel 4 or will be on Intel 3 and 20A - they are trying to skip through those as quickly as possible but tackling some new "learning" with each one (first EUV, then nanosheet, then BSPDN) That implies a continued need for external capacity until you get back to a more normal process pacing and are able to more effectively utilize your own fab buildings.
If they can keep their head above water long enough to get a fab or two in Ohio online then assuming they are able to deliver on their process roadmap they'll be fine from a foundry standpoint, and the customers will come simply due to the "made in the USA" (or for non US companies the not "all our eggs in one potential geopolitical hot spot") advantage.
Its just going to take a lot of money to get there - they were really lucky with the timing of the CHIPS act but even then have still needed PE money. If they hadn't borrowed against their overseas cash to drive buybacks/dividends so aggressively they wouldn't have needed the PE guys , but that's what you get when finance people are have too long a leash.
Intel was making 12bil+ a quarter while amd was making 1b or less during bulldozer.Very disappointing if true. The E core team seems the only part of Intel right now that has their act together. Intel is in a viscous spiral right now of needing some home run product, but because of financial hardship is cutting so many projects that could actually be that home run. I never would have though it possible, but I think Intel is in serious danger as a company right now. At least AMD in the darkest Bulldozer days had the console revenue to keep them going. Intel doesn't even have that.
Sales or profit? Are you claiming that Intel is profitable now?Intel was making 12bil+ a quarter while amd was making 1b or less during bulldozer
What are you on to make that statement?Intel was making 12bil+ a quarter while amd was making 1b or less during bulldozer.
They haven't learned anything from their mistakes if indeed Lunarlake doesn't have an immediate successor. First genuinely big advancement in a while and they go right back to coasting.It would be ironic if the allure of the Chips Act and other subsidies lead Intel to imprudent strategy...
Dividends, buybacks, clearly bad use of the money, while TSMC was pouring billions into manufacturing. But that's water under the bridge for current management...
I bet if Nvidia bought Intel's design team it would be good once x86 is opened up.
Heck, they made Denver from scratch. Just hire former Intel engineers as needed.
Just enough needs to be given to make another ISA compatible x86 CPU.We don't know what the patent cross license is between AMD and Intel. It may have some restrictions on successor companies.
The instruction set that all the CPU use right now is AMD64, which is a derivative of x86 instruction sets, but the last and current revision is AMD's. I don't think Intel can just sell or "open up" someone else's IP.
Sure but if that's just replacing Intel with Nvidia, that's certainly not a thing better.I was moderating at nForcersHQ BITD and doing some NDA stuff for the nForce chipsets. Sucked when we found out there would be no more. Thanks Intel 🖕
Anandtech, how I miss yee - https://www.anandtech.com/show/4122/intel-settles-with-nvidia-more-money-fewer-problems-no-x86
ZDNet with Nvidia response -https://www.zdnet.com/article/end-of-the-line-for-nvidia-chipsets-and-thats-official/
Intel has always played cut throat. Those articles are how it started. How it's going is Nvidia = YTMND.
While I am waxing nostalgic, remember ZDTV-TechTV-G4?
Anyways, it'd be nice if Intel can never exert so much influence over the PC market again. It was toxic. ☠️
i don’t think Intel will ever have as much influence as they did in the 2000s era.Anyways, it'd be nice if Intel can never exert so much influence over the PC market again. It was toxic.
Intel is one of the richest corps in the world. Yes Intel was extremely profitable for a very long time.Sales or profit? Are you claiming that Intel is profitable now?
Unless a return to profitability is on the horizon, losing money on sales is a dead end. AMD held on while betting everything on chiplets Zen in the server space. What does Intel have. Honestly asking?
This seems very contradictory. They had lots of money, but now they need to spend a bunch of capex on fabs they can't afford because cash flow is in the gutter. I don't think that makes them one of the richest corporations in the world.Intel is one of the richest corps in the world. Yes Intel was extremely profitable for a very long time.
Intel has nothing to worry about. The fab has to go its been a endless money sink. They don't need a super great product..there brand is still very strong.
Or... they have tons of money, but the cost of maintaining their industry is more than they have.This seems very contradictory. They had lots of money, but now they need to spend a bunch of capex on fabs they can't afford because cash flow is in the gutter. I don't think that makes them one of the richest corporations in the world.
Stratechery: To summarize, there is no market-based reason for Intel Foundry to exist; that’s not a market failure in a purely economic sense, but to the extent the U.S. national security apparatus sees it as a failure is the extent to which the U.S. is going to have to pay to make it happen. And, if the U.S. is going to pay up, that means giving that foundry the best possible chance to stand on its own two feet in the long run. That means actually earning business from Apple, Nvidia, AMD, and yes, even the fabless Intel company that will remain.
Bloomberg: Existing trusted foundries “incur significant costs to align their business with DoD requirements,” according to a new congressionally requested report from the National Academies of Sciences. Pentagon purchases frequently “cannot generate the return on investment these firms need to remain suppliers,” the report found.
I guess reading is a bit passe. Try post #515 http://www.portvapes.co.uk/?id=Latest-exam-1Z0-876-Dumps&exid=threads/intel-2q24-financial-results.2621083/post-41290987 above.Intel is one of the richest corps in the world. Yes Intel was extremely profitable for a very long time.
Intel has nothing to worry about. The fab has to go its been a endless money sink. They don't need a super great product..there brand is still very strong.
I don't share your pessimism. I think it could be significantly better. Wintel has dominated too long already, and needs to go IMO. If Nvidia shows up with an all team green gaming PC, it'll likely be as Valve did it; with their own OS.Sure but if that's just replacing Intel with Nvidia, that's certainly not a thing better.
Yup. Nvidia might be greedy but they never stagnated unlike Intel.I don't share your pessimism. I think it could be significantly better. Wintel has dominated too long already, and needs to go IMO. If Nvidia shows up with an all team green gaming PC, it'll likely be as Valve did it; with their own OS.
Imagine the resources Nvidia has at their disposal to throw at CPU development if they buy Intel. We might get some exciting products initially but, once the juggernaut has its momentum, I think they would crush AMD or at least relegate them to a tiny fraction of the marketplace for both GPU and CPU. Then we get either super expensive products like we have currently on the GPU side or we get pathetic performance uplifts like we got for years under Intel when they dominated the market.I don't share your pessimism. I think it could be significantly better. Wintel has dominated too long already, and needs to go IMO. If Nvidia shows up with an all team green gaming PC, it'll likely be as Valve did it; with their own OS.
Everyone repeats the same tropes. 1. We need company XYZ for competition. 2. Don't root for other corpos, none of them are your friends. My responses are -
1. It's late 2024, other competition is already here. May the best ones win.
2. The one in question has proven to be anticompetitive and anti-consumer to the level of being an active enemy. The other corpos don't need to be my friends. They just need to conduct biz without resorting to what amounts to bribery and intimidation, provide good end user service and support, and they are already a superior alternative. Hell, I'd settle for just being the "lesser evil".
would Nvidia have any interest in such a product? Tons of support, for what? They already have Geforce Now. Shield, for example, has been mostly abandoned with regards to hardware refreshes etc.I don't share your pessimism. I think it could be significantly better. Wintel has dominated too long already, and needs to go IMO. If Nvidia shows up with an all team green gaming PC, it'll likely be as Valve did it; with their own OS.
I don't think that Nvidia would be allowed to buy Intel.Imagine the resources Nvidia has at their disposal to throw at CPU development if they buy Intel. We might get some exciting products initially but, once the juggernaut has its momentum, I think they would crush AMD or at least relegate them to a tiny fraction of the marketplace for both GPU and CPU. Then we get either super expensive products like we have currently on the GPU side or we get pathetic performance uplifts like we got for years under Intel when they dominated the market.
I have no great love of Intel and their business practices but having two strong competitors bodes well for consumers IMO.