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Giving up manufacturing would be terrible. It really feels like Intel is ceding any hope of leadership to focus on milking their IP for cash. That would be incr

Giving up manufacturing would be terrible. It really feels like Intel is ceding any hope of leadership to focus on milking their IP for cash. That would be incredibly frustrating and sad. I hope it's not true or just very limited scope.

Alupis 6y ago
It's worked out extremely well for AMD... and recall everyone was saying it would be the end of AMD when they spun off their FAB into Global Foundries. Fabricating, and design are very different businesses.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  Well yes, but while AMD has great technology, their success as a CPU maker has always relied on the success of the x86 platform. The assumption is x86 will remain competitive for years to come, but that seems a lot less clear now. It feels like what ARM is doing right now is quite similar to what x86 did to mini computers and mainframes. ARM has become a competitive pressure that will prevent Intel and AMD from cashing in on that platform the way they have in the past. Chromebooks and the iPad have been nibbling at the low end for a few years now. Now Apple's M1 is taking a big chunk out of Intel's lucrative ultrabook market. Microsoft and other OEMs are going to start pushing harder on ARM just to stay competitive. Though being the sole licensee of x86, maybe AMD can pull a weird rabbit out of their hat.
  - Alupis 6y ago
    AMD also has ARM irons in the fire[1]. [1] https://www.amd.com/en/amd-opteron-a1100 https://www.amd.com/en/amd-opteron-a1100
    - ogre_codes 6y ago
      I didn't realize AMD had ARM CPUs. I was trying to hint that AMD might make some weird hybrid x86/ ARM beast that could have the advantages of ARM much of the time, but could run x86 native. I'm not sure that's even possible. AMD might do well in a post x86 world. It's just a broader playing field.
      - Alupis 6y ago
        That would indeed be an interesting setup, kind of like the big.LITTLE configuration popular on a lot of high-end ARM processors. I'm sure it could be done... but probably would have some interesting effects on software (unless you do full x86 emulation on the ARM cores... but then what's the point). It's far more likely we'll start seeing ARM processors with hundreds or thousands of cores in the server market first. These would be particularly interesting to virtual server providers like Amazon, Google, Digital Ocean and others.
      - owowow 6y ago
        AMD stopped building these in 2016 and Amazon hired away most of the AMD team that worked on this chip.
    - perfopt 6y ago
      This was several years ago. They never really launched their ARM line. I believe they no longer have an ARM license. They certainly dont have a product ARM line
- yread 6y ago
  Extremely well? The split happened 12 years ago - AMD was struggling almost bankrupt until last year or two. Global Foundries is also not doing so well - they also gave up on chasing the latest process and focus on specialized 12nm stuff
  - Alupis 6y ago
    Extremely well, yes. AMD, in fact, did not go bankrupt. Keeping their Fab arm was quite literally going to bankrupt them back when they made the decision to spin it off. They could not afford to sink the R&D cost into newer, smaller process fabing and recognized maintaining their own Fab would (a) bankrupt AMD attempting to push into newer processes and/or (b) prevent AMD from ever being competitive in the x86 market due to using old process. In hindsight, it was a brilliant move, and now has allowed AMD to partner with any Fab that has the technology AMD needs.
    - jjoonathan 6y ago
      It was brilliant -- but it reduced the number of leading-edge fab players from 3 to 2. Intel pulling the same move would reduce the number of leading-edge fab players from 2 to 1. See the problem?
      - Alupis 6y ago
        What? Intel hasn't been a "leading-edge" fab in years and years at this point. And that is exactly why they've lost their "advantage" over AMD. Intel got bogged down in very expensive R&D, and failed over and over to produce yield good enough to mass produce retail chips. As far as I know, TSMC and Samsung are both considered leading-edge.
        jjoonathan 6y ago
        Samsung is burning money to produce chips a node behind TSMC. They are a leading-edge fab right now like Intel is a leading-edge fab right now. You're right that they are a contender, but the fab market is always going to be this way: one player will be the best, the others won't be. If you design CPUs but don't manufacture them, your supplier will always have a natural monopoly, meanwhile your customers have more options every day. Ditching the monopoly market to focus on the competitive market is not a good long-term strategy.
Traster 6y ago
I think this is the wrong way of looking at it - and actually the way that Intel themselves describe it. Intel think of themselves as a manufacturing company whose designs drive demand for their fab. But in truth, most of their value comes from x86 which could be produced by any fab. To stay competitive, their high end designs need to be on the absolute bleedge edge process. Which up until now has been Intel fabs. But it's not giving up on Intel fabs to get their stuff produced by TSMC. They need to do both - they need to make money by producing the best designs in the market no matter what the process in the high end space, as wl as sinking investment into their fabrication side to make sure that in 5 years time they're the leading fab. At which point they can turn around and say F-U to all those TSMC customers, produce only Intel chips and use that to capture market share.
- reader_mode 6y ago
  And the way I see it that's probably the reason why TSMC won't allocate any significant capacity to them, they already have more demand than they can produce. Maybe if they spun out the fab part but they have so much stuff under the corporation that probably makes no sense.
  - muricula 6y ago
    AMD spun out global foundries, and they're not competitive at the bleeding edge today. I fear the fab-only part of Intel would be the same.
    - iforgotpassword 6y ago
      So then AMD switched to TSMC. Otherwise they would have been stuck with an inferior process and fallen even more behind during the last decade.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  > But in truth, most of their value comes from x86 which could be produced by any fab. This is why I suggest it's a profit taking move. If they ditched all manufacturing, their profitability will certainly go up in the near term. But then how does Intel fend off increasingly competitive ARM CPUs? So long as Intel had a hand in manufacturing, they at least have a chance of maintaining an edge through their processes. I'm also deeply frustrated that yet another manufacturing giant is leaving the US. But that's more or less another issue.
agumonkey 6y ago
It might be a short term move just to sell, until they reintegrate in-house manufacturing. It would avoid fab being a comparison spot. But it would also devalue the brand to the eyes of consumers potentially.
dlevine 6y ago
Intel has whiffed their 10nm process node to the point where it may never launch in any scale. Their 7nm node is significantly behind schedule. Their only solution in the near-term is to keep increasing the TDP of their chips, which won't work for long. This might be their only good option. Sure outsourcing manufacturing is a risk, but it's probably one they need to take. They will catch back up if they can get their 7nm node back on track, which isn't a given.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  I just think it stinks of desperation and suspect once they go down this path it's going to be very difficult to reverse course.
  - CountSessine 6y ago
    Stink or otherwise, they are actually very desperate!
  - iforgotpassword 6y ago
    Intel is intel because of x86, not because of their fab. 10nm is what, 4 years behind, does anyone feel confident 7nm will be ready in the next 5 years? Having a superior architecture (which they don't anymore) can only compensate for so much regarding node size. Intel isn't going to pull that one around. Having your fab in-house only makes sense if you're state of the art. At some point, not admitting defeat and just keep increasing TDP is false pride.
    - ant6n 6y ago
      Intel is what it is because of fab. For many years, they were way ahead. 5 years ago AMD also had x86 but was very much behind and almost went bankrupt.
- qppo 6y ago
  The federal government has identified semiconductor manufacturing as a critical piece of national infrastructure. If it comes to it, Intel can get subsidized like Boeing.
u678u 6y ago
> It really feels like Intel is ceding any hope of leadership to focus on milking their IP for cash. AMD/Apple/Nvidia gave up manufacturing took all the cash and left Intel a long way behind. Its manufacturing is causing their problems and losing leadership.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  I don't think Apple/ Nvidia have ever manufactured their own CPUs before. Apple has certainly been fabless their entire run as CPU makers. > Its manufacturing is causing their problems and losing leadership. Certainly. But not long ago they were top dog. Ceasing manufacturing their own CPUs would mean they could never be more than a peer among equals. I suppose that's a step up from their current state, but they can kiss their 30% margins goodbye.
totalZero 6y ago
Semiconductors are in massive demand right now. If Intel can offload some production, it will surely use the freed-up capacity to produce other chips.

Alupis 6y ago

It's worked out extremely well for AMD... and recall everyone was saying it would be the end of AMD when they spun off their FAB into Global Foundries. Fabricating, and design are very different businesses.

ogre_codes 6y ago
Well yes, but while AMD has great technology, their success as a CPU maker has always relied on the success of the x86 platform. The assumption is x86 will remain competitive for years to come, but that seems a lot less clear now. It feels like what ARM is doing right now is quite similar to what x86 did to mini computers and mainframes. ARM has become a competitive pressure that will prevent Intel and AMD from cashing in on that platform the way they have in the past. Chromebooks and the iPad have been nibbling at the low end for a few years now. Now Apple's M1 is taking a big chunk out of Intel's lucrative ultrabook market. Microsoft and other OEMs are going to start pushing harder on ARM just to stay competitive. Though being the sole licensee of x86, maybe AMD can pull a weird rabbit out of their hat.
- Alupis 6y ago
  AMD also has ARM irons in the fire[1]. [1] https://www.amd.com/en/amd-opteron-a1100 https://www.amd.com/en/amd-opteron-a1100
  - ogre_codes 6y ago
    I didn't realize AMD had ARM CPUs. I was trying to hint that AMD might make some weird hybrid x86/ ARM beast that could have the advantages of ARM much of the time, but could run x86 native. I'm not sure that's even possible. AMD might do well in a post x86 world. It's just a broader playing field.
    - Alupis 6y ago
      That would indeed be an interesting setup, kind of like the big.LITTLE configuration popular on a lot of high-end ARM processors. I'm sure it could be done... but probably would have some interesting effects on software (unless you do full x86 emulation on the ARM cores... but then what's the point). It's far more likely we'll start seeing ARM processors with hundreds or thousands of cores in the server market first. These would be particularly interesting to virtual server providers like Amazon, Google, Digital Ocean and others.
    - owowow 6y ago
      AMD stopped building these in 2016 and Amazon hired away most of the AMD team that worked on this chip.
  - perfopt 6y ago
    This was several years ago. They never really launched their ARM line. I believe they no longer have an ARM license. They certainly dont have a product ARM line
yread 6y ago
Extremely well? The split happened 12 years ago - AMD was struggling almost bankrupt until last year or two. Global Foundries is also not doing so well - they also gave up on chasing the latest process and focus on specialized 12nm stuff
- Alupis 6y ago
  Extremely well, yes. AMD, in fact, did not go bankrupt. Keeping their Fab arm was quite literally going to bankrupt them back when they made the decision to spin it off. They could not afford to sink the R&D cost into newer, smaller process fabing and recognized maintaining their own Fab would (a) bankrupt AMD attempting to push into newer processes and/or (b) prevent AMD from ever being competitive in the x86 market due to using old process. In hindsight, it was a brilliant move, and now has allowed AMD to partner with any Fab that has the technology AMD needs.
  - jjoonathan 6y ago
    It was brilliant -- but it reduced the number of leading-edge fab players from 3 to 2. Intel pulling the same move would reduce the number of leading-edge fab players from 2 to 1. See the problem?
    - Alupis 6y ago
      What? Intel hasn't been a "leading-edge" fab in years and years at this point. And that is exactly why they've lost their "advantage" over AMD. Intel got bogged down in very expensive R&D, and failed over and over to produce yield good enough to mass produce retail chips. As far as I know, TSMC and Samsung are both considered leading-edge.
      - jjoonathan 6y ago
        Samsung is burning money to produce chips a node behind TSMC. They are a leading-edge fab right now like Intel is a leading-edge fab right now. You're right that they are a contender, but the fab market is always going to be this way: one player will be the best, the others won't be. If you design CPUs but don't manufacture them, your supplier will always have a natural monopoly, meanwhile your customers have more options every day. Ditching the monopoly market to focus on the competitive market is not a good long-term strategy.

Traster 6y ago

I think this is the wrong way of looking at it - and actually the way that Intel themselves describe it. Intel think of themselves as a manufacturing company whose designs drive demand for their fab. But in truth, most of their value comes from x86 which could be produced by any fab. To stay competitive, their high end designs need to be on the absolute bleedge edge process. Which up until now has been Intel fabs. But it's not giving up on Intel fabs to get their stuff produced by TSMC. They need to do both - they need to make money by producing the best designs in the market no matter what the process in the high end space, as wl as sinking investment into their fabrication side to make sure that in 5 years time they're the leading fab. At which point they can turn around and say F-U to all those TSMC customers, produce only Intel chips and use that to capture market share.

reader_mode 6y ago
And the way I see it that's probably the reason why TSMC won't allocate any significant capacity to them, they already have more demand than they can produce. Maybe if they spun out the fab part but they have so much stuff under the corporation that probably makes no sense.
- muricula 6y ago
  AMD spun out global foundries, and they're not competitive at the bleeding edge today. I fear the fab-only part of Intel would be the same.
  - iforgotpassword 6y ago
    So then AMD switched to TSMC. Otherwise they would have been stuck with an inferior process and fallen even more behind during the last decade.
ogre_codes 6y ago
> But in truth, most of their value comes from x86 which could be produced by any fab. This is why I suggest it's a profit taking move. If they ditched all manufacturing, their profitability will certainly go up in the near term. But then how does Intel fend off increasingly competitive ARM CPUs? So long as Intel had a hand in manufacturing, they at least have a chance of maintaining an edge through their processes. I'm also deeply frustrated that yet another manufacturing giant is leaving the US. But that's more or less another issue.

agumonkey 6y ago

It might be a short term move just to sell, until they reintegrate in-house manufacturing. It would avoid fab being a comparison spot. But it would also devalue the brand to the eyes of consumers potentially.

dlevine 6y ago

Intel has whiffed their 10nm process node to the point where it may never launch in any scale. Their 7nm node is significantly behind schedule. Their only solution in the near-term is to keep increasing the TDP of their chips, which won't work for long. This might be their only good option. Sure outsourcing manufacturing is a risk, but it's probably one they need to take. They will catch back up if they can get their 7nm node back on track, which isn't a given.

ogre_codes 6y ago
I just think it stinks of desperation and suspect once they go down this path it's going to be very difficult to reverse course.
- CountSessine 6y ago
  Stink or otherwise, they are actually very desperate!
- iforgotpassword 6y ago
  Intel is intel because of x86, not because of their fab. 10nm is what, 4 years behind, does anyone feel confident 7nm will be ready in the next 5 years? Having a superior architecture (which they don't anymore) can only compensate for so much regarding node size. Intel isn't going to pull that one around. Having your fab in-house only makes sense if you're state of the art. At some point, not admitting defeat and just keep increasing TDP is false pride.
  - ant6n 6y ago
    Intel is what it is because of fab. For many years, they were way ahead. 5 years ago AMD also had x86 but was very much behind and almost went bankrupt.
qppo 6y ago
The federal government has identified semiconductor manufacturing as a critical piece of national infrastructure. If it comes to it, Intel can get subsidized like Boeing.

u678u 6y ago

> It really feels like Intel is ceding any hope of leadership to focus on milking their IP for cash. AMD/Apple/Nvidia gave up manufacturing took all the cash and left Intel a long way behind. Its manufacturing is causing their problems and losing leadership.

ogre_codes 6y ago
I don't think Apple/ Nvidia have ever manufactured their own CPUs before. Apple has certainly been fabless their entire run as CPU makers. > Its manufacturing is causing their problems and losing leadership. Certainly. But not long ago they were top dog. Ceasing manufacturing their own CPUs would mean they could never be more than a peer among equals. I suppose that's a step up from their current state, but they can kiss their 30% margins goodbye.

totalZero 6y ago

Semiconductors are in massive demand right now. If Intel can offload some production, it will surely use the freed-up capacity to produce other chips.