> But it's not giving up on Intel fabs to get their stuff produced by TSMC. Manufacturing at the leading edge is getting increasingly expensive, to the point w

> But it's not giving up on Intel fabs to get their stuff produced by TSMC. Manufacturing at the leading edge is getting increasingly expensive, to the point where every fab other than TSMC, Samsung, and Intel has bowed out over the years and has never operated on the leading edge again. A major part of the reason for this consolidation is that fabs need more and more economies of scale in order to make up the cost of the initial investment in the fab. If you can't achieve those economies of scale, then the manufacturing node will never be profitable, and whoever's bankrolling it will quickly pull the plug. (GlobalFoundries exiting the 7nm market is the most recent example of this.) If Intel outsources leading edge production to TSMC or Samsung, they will lose operational experience and infrastructure needed to operate fabs at the leading edge, and their fabs will never be competitive for leading edge production again (barring a major misstep by TSMC or Samsung).