11 ms·

So, Intel has been having trouble getting their cutting-edge (very small geometry) manufacturing to work. Automotive chips, however, I believe typically do not

So, Intel has been having trouble getting their cutting-edge (very small geometry) manufacturing to work. Automotive chips, however, I believe typically do not require the very newest, smallest geometry manufacturing (although they have other peculiarities and demanding requirements). I was, many years ago, employed as a manufacturing engineer in semiconductor fabs that, once no longer cutting edge enough to do the latest CPU's or memory chips, would transition to doing higher-voltage stuff. It's a reasonable thing to do. It does not necessarily speak well of Intel's current situation, though, with respect to CPU and memory chips, that they consider this a good move. But, given their current situation, it probably is making the best of a bad situation.

rossdavidh 6y ago
I should have mentioned that I haven't worked in the semiconductor industry for over a decade, so perhaps something has changed with regard to automotive chips, but that was my understanding at the time I left.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
guessbest 6y ago
Does this mean they are going to onshore their fabrication plants based on your experience? It seems like CEOs promise that but still go ahead with building plants in countries with cheap labor
- sanxiyn 6y ago
  My understanding is that fab equipments are so expensive that cheap labor doesn't matter. Note that most of Samsung's fab capacity is in South Korea and it has no plan whatsoever to offshore that. Ditto for TSMC.
  - csours 6y ago
    Most of Samsung's fabs may be in SK, but some of it is just down the street from me in Austin.
    - guessbest 6y ago
      I'm near Austin. Where are they?
      - csours 6y ago
        Between Pflugerville and Manor. The address is publicly available with a quick search.
        guessbest 6y ago
        12100 Samsung Blvd, Austin, TX 78754 ?
  - MangoCoffee 6y ago
    modern fab is pretty automated. its doesn't required as much labors as other industries. Samsung fab was shutdown during Texas winter storm. https://www.statesman.com/story/business/2021/03/30/samsung-austin-fabrication-plant-online-after-texas-freeze-shutdown-losses/7060018002/ https://www.statesman.com/story/business/2021/03/30/samsung-...
- totalZero 6y ago
  Dollar for dollar, fab is not as labor intensive as many other forms of manufacturing. Even if it were, the occasional loss of product due to infrastructure problems in underdeveloped areas would offset labor cost. It makes sense to locate in one area where you can count on reliable infrastructure and negotiate good rates due to your massive scale. Fabs use a lot of water and electricity. Samsung announced that it was considering a new investment in Austin, then the Texas storms hit. A few days later, Samsung announced that it was considering a new investment in Austin or somewhere else. Intel already operates several fabs in the US and other first world countries so I don't know what onshore would mean in this context, but Gelsinger has made it pretty clear that he believes our best bet is to make chips at American fabs run by American companies. So I guess that is a yes.
- rossdavidh 6y ago
  Intel has always (and continues today) had substantial onshore production capacity.
mmmBacon 6y ago
The challenge with automotive parts is reliability and performance over extended temperature and humidity range. This is not necessarily something you are just good at because you already produce semis.
- mc32 6y ago
  So if those who make semis for the military have capacity, then they can make them for the automotive industry.
  - moftz 6y ago
    It goes consumer grade, automotive, military, and then you have levels above that meant for things like space and down-hole oil drilling. Automotive is certainly a step up above consumer grade but it's not like Intel is throwing an i7 into a car. They are going to just offer fab capacity to anyone that can build on the various technologies that can be built at Intel's fabs.
  - mmmBacon 6y ago
    This is not really true. Firstly, the volume for automotive is much higher. 2nd the cost structure is entirely different and a business set up for high cost low volume military parts may not be competitive in automotive with low cost.
    - mc32 6y ago
      I think ramp up is more the issue. The cost of idling plants and ceding market share outweighs any added component cost (within reason).
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
  It's something Intel used to be good at until they dismantled all of their other chip lines in the 90's and 00's.
SECProto 6y ago
> It does not necessarily speak well of Intel's current situation, though, with respect to CPU and memory chips, that they consider this a good move. They also announced [1] that they were building two new fabs in Arizona a couple weeks ago. There may just be growing demand for shortened supply chain in the semiconductor space (recent trade/tariff wars, chip shortages from offshore fabs, various national security implications) [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/tiriasresearch/2021/03/23/intel-invests-20-billion-in-2-new-arizona-fabs/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/tiriasresearch/2021/03/23/intel...
User23 6y ago
Or maybe Intel leadership sees the big picture and they’re doing their part to help their country.
- lovich 6y ago
  I needed a good laugh today
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
totalZero 6y ago
Intel is playing a PR angle to win hearts and minds for the homegrown semiconductor push. Even if an automotive IC move to get Congress and the public to appreciate Intel incurs a short term loss, it may be economical in the long term because there's about to be a lot of government money available to the sector. Also, if they want to get busy with foundry, this is the way to do it. It's not like they're doing HPC processors with all the trailing node fabs. I know an engineering researcher who uses a shaft position sensor chip that is also widely employed in EVs. They have been out of stock for months. That little chip could have major implications for many industries and communities. "For want of a nail..."
- SavantIdiot 6y ago
  A little of both, I think. They do have lots of fab capacity for older process nodes which are ideal of embedded applications. And they do want to boost their PR image, plus they aren't wrong: the industry is kinda effed right now with TWO fires in Japan (most recently Renesas). It's a golden alignment for Intel, and Gelsinger miiiiight be shrewd enough to score a home run. But Intel stock? Eeehhhh.... not a long term hold, they ain't got a play book after this.
  - zitterbewegung 6y ago
    A contrary opinion is here by Ian Cutress: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaB1WuFUAtw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaB1WuFUAtw I think that Intel does have two plays left. 1. Appeal to the government that they can't go beyond their current process node and the government preorders a bunch of processors to do this. 2. Intel abandons new process nodes and becomes a customer of TSMC. If Intel thinks about doing #2 I think the government would be forced to do #1 for the sole fact of keeping chip manufacturing knowledge in the US
    - SavantIdiot 6y ago
      I see #1 happening, but I'm not sure how #2 would play out. Hundreds of billions of dollars spent on fabs, with close to 80% of their employees working in fabs 24/7. That would crater several towns in the US (Chandler, Santa Clara, Portland come time mind), and just be throwing away money. One hell of a capital loss! I think there are too many people high up at intel getting stinky rich to throw the company under the buss like that. But then again it might happen, you're not the first to suggest it.
hkmurakami 6y ago
Former automotive R&D guy here. It was quite some time ago but my colleagues in the chip department (we were all new grads at the time) were telling me that they were designing chips with triple redundancy. "Hood Space" is a fierce competition among vendors to get into car models 5 years in the future, but miniaturization needs are nowhere near that of the consumer electronic space (this was shocking to me, having been raised in SV in a family working in the PC industry!) Fast forward some years later and I was working at a motion sensor company for consumer electronics. Our node sizes were like 40-50nm and many generations behind cutting edge ICs. Lower margins but meaningful volume. Our fab was naturally, you guessed it, TSMC.
robomartin 6y ago
The problem we have ("we" meaning the US and Europe) is that we have allowed a massive portion of the semiconductor mechanism to leave our shores. In a world where electronics are found in just about everything, this is a pretty bad situation to be in. We are in the process of developing a commercial product that will require manufacturing at a rate of 10K to 20K units per month. When we started this work, semiconductor availability wasn't a significant concern. At the start of this year we started to receive quotes with lead times in the order of 52 weeks. Yes, a whole year. Some of the chips we designed into this product became unobtainium. Well. Not quite. We discovered the supply is plentiful in China. And, of course, pricing is insane. A device that was $0.70 is now over three dollars in China. And, again, of course, the only way you can buy it is if you have your boards manufactured by the supplier. In our case this would mean a contract for 10K to 20K units per month having to leave the prospects of US-based manufacturing --which is already a difficult proposition under normal circumstances. Never mind roads and bridges. We don't need to touch any of that. We need to dump that money into rebuilding industries and reducing their costs of operation to the bone. Let me put it this way. Everyone can understand that something like a basic Arduino is a very simple product. In electronics terms, on par with making cloth masks. Well, if you had to manufacture a simple Arduino in the US or Europe today, it would be impossible. Much as is the case for masks, the raw components needed to make such a product are not made in the US and Europe. You might be able to have the raw PCB's made. I would not be surprised if the raw materials for that process were not made in the US and Europe as well (I didn't look into it, so I can't make that assertion). Even if you could make one, the end-user cost would likely be over a hundred dollars per unit (if the components were made in the US and Europe). That's were we are today. And this isn't going to get any better by fixing roads and bridges. We need to focus on what is truly important. We needed to do this ten or twenty years ago. This effort by Intel might not be all it is reported to be. I just hope it is an indication that we are starting to understand what we are standing on...and it isn't solid ground.
- ChuckNorris89 6y ago
  >Well, if you had to manufacture a simple Arduino in the US or Europe today, it would be impossible. I think you have no idea what you're talking about. In Europe at least, there are plenty of fabs that make microcontrollers like the Arduino. And the original Arduino boards (w)are made in Italy which last I checked is still in Europe. >Much as is the case for masks, the raw components needed to make such a product are not made in the US and Europe. In Europe we have also plenty of factories making FFP2 masks (my favorite ones I can buy in Austria ATM come from a brand made in the Czech Republic).
rorykoehler 6y ago
2nd hand cars have become 20% more expensive here in Germany this year (anecdotal based on just buying a used car). This is a good move because Intel are being agile and focused on solving a real problem. This speaks well for how they will respond more generally. They know it isn't below them.
- criddell 6y ago
  Used cars are expensive in the US right now too. We had a car that wasn't being used very often so my wife suggested we look into selling it. Went to the website of one of those places that gives you an offer online and the offer seemed to good to be true. Took it in to them and walked out with a check for the full amount.
throwaway4good 6y ago
So they are going to become a contract manufacturer of +300 nm chips that are sold a few dollars a piece? How is that going be a good business for them?
- baybal2 6y ago
  It's a good business for some. Automotive is sold at n times the markup of commodity chips.
jillesvangurp 6y ago
Actually, modern vehicle manufacturing is mostly bottle-necked on software and much of the added value comes via software powered by hardware accelerated machine learning. So performance matters, a lot. Legacy car manufacturers are basically playing catch up with the likes of Tesla (doing their own chips) or Waymo (nvidia, I believe) to fix their supply chain to not have dozens of poorly integrated black boxes so they can actually update them in a sane way. E.g. VW has been struggling in the last year to get that working with the ID3. They are working with Infineon on chips for this apparently. Other manufacturers are facing similar challenges and are getting there with various levels of success. E.g. if you want to update your Kia EV, you need to go to the dealer. So, the market opportunity for Intel is making performant SOC aimed at these manufacturers that can keep up with the market leaders and can be used while they figure out to get from level 2/3 autonomy to level 5. There probably is a market for dumb EVs as well without much intelligence but that also implies low margins. Anything ICE is basically what it is at this point. R&D is basically limited to milking those legacy product lines until they are eventually shut down. So that's not a good market for Intel either. There are plenty of low margin/low performance manufacturers where Intel stands no chance of ramping up to volumes of sales that would compensate for the low margins. So, high end EV manufacturers with some ambitions on the autonomous driving front is the market for this. Anything else does not make sense for Intel. The only question is if they keep on insisting on x86. IMHO if they do, they are going to fail, again. Like they failed in the mobile market. The right moment to start targeting this market was 10 to 5 years ago. They are already late.
- whatever1 6y ago
  Why this obsession with dropping x86? Do we have any evidence that arm offers better performance & thermals at the same processing node? Only one arm chip today really competes with x86 and it is in 5nm node whereas amd is at 7 and intel at 10
  - jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
    If the reporting I've read is accurrate, the x86 ISA is a limitation on decoder width. Intel and AMD's attempts to go above 4 parallel decoders have failed. Apple is shipping 8 way today.
baybal2 6y ago
Yes, but making otherwise 180nm+ chips on their still very advanced fabs would've been a disaster unless automotive's very , very fat margins. It still shows the level of desperation there.
ksec 6y ago
May be it is from Pat Gelsinger, so I am uncharacteristically optimistic about it. 1. Intel needs to clear Fab Capacity if they were to move to higher node. This is always a problem in the Fab industry. Normally Intel just scale whatever product line up they have that fits. 2. Car will be the next SemiConductor Battle Ground. It will just be a large computer, lots of sensors with battery moving around. Intel already has MobileEye, they might as well partner with these largest Car manufacture on Chip design for future growth. This is the same play with 5G although Intel seriously messed it up. 3. It also make political wins and help with their change in direction of Custom Foundry or now called Intel Foundry Services. For me this is a brilliant move. Assuming they execute it perfectly. Some short term pain and lots of long term gain. Which is what I like. A vision and strategy how they are going to win. Something that was lacking with the previous Intel.
PaulHoule 6y ago
The auto industry is also moving towards smaller geometry parts. Not least of all is the sensors, self-driving, telematics, radios and such. There are issues in terms of environmental conditions, aging and such, but it is happening. Conversely, a lot of the trouble with 10nm and smaller manufacturing is that they shrank the transistors but didn't shrink the dies -- or rather, the ones that did succeed didn't "make a giant 5nm CPU" but they decided to make chiplets instead. If you really could make the monolithic 5nm part it would crush the chiplets in terms of economics since advanced packaging is more like circuit board assembly than lithography. Maybe they can do it now with new pellicles, but today small geometry parts go good with small dies.

rossdavidh 6y ago

I should have mentioned that I haven't worked in the semiconductor industry for over a decade, so perhaps something has changed with regard to automotive chips, but that was my understanding at the time I left.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

guessbest 6y ago

Does this mean they are going to onshore their fabrication plants based on your experience? It seems like CEOs promise that but still go ahead with building plants in countries with cheap labor

sanxiyn 6y ago
My understanding is that fab equipments are so expensive that cheap labor doesn't matter. Note that most of Samsung's fab capacity is in South Korea and it has no plan whatsoever to offshore that. Ditto for TSMC.
- csours 6y ago
  Most of Samsung's fabs may be in SK, but some of it is just down the street from me in Austin.
  - guessbest 6y ago
    I'm near Austin. Where are they?
    - csours 6y ago
      Between Pflugerville and Manor. The address is publicly available with a quick search.
      - guessbest 6y ago
        12100 Samsung Blvd, Austin, TX 78754 ?
- MangoCoffee 6y ago
  modern fab is pretty automated. its doesn't required as much labors as other industries. Samsung fab was shutdown during Texas winter storm. https://www.statesman.com/story/business/2021/03/30/samsung-austin-fabrication-plant-online-after-texas-freeze-shutdown-losses/7060018002/ https://www.statesman.com/story/business/2021/03/30/samsung-...
totalZero 6y ago
Dollar for dollar, fab is not as labor intensive as many other forms of manufacturing. Even if it were, the occasional loss of product due to infrastructure problems in underdeveloped areas would offset labor cost. It makes sense to locate in one area where you can count on reliable infrastructure and negotiate good rates due to your massive scale. Fabs use a lot of water and electricity. Samsung announced that it was considering a new investment in Austin, then the Texas storms hit. A few days later, Samsung announced that it was considering a new investment in Austin or somewhere else. Intel already operates several fabs in the US and other first world countries so I don't know what onshore would mean in this context, but Gelsinger has made it pretty clear that he believes our best bet is to make chips at American fabs run by American companies. So I guess that is a yes.
rossdavidh 6y ago
Intel has always (and continues today) had substantial onshore production capacity.

mmmBacon 6y ago

The challenge with automotive parts is reliability and performance over extended temperature and humidity range. This is not necessarily something you are just good at because you already produce semis.

mc32 6y ago
So if those who make semis for the military have capacity, then they can make them for the automotive industry.
- moftz 6y ago
  It goes consumer grade, automotive, military, and then you have levels above that meant for things like space and down-hole oil drilling. Automotive is certainly a step up above consumer grade but it's not like Intel is throwing an i7 into a car. They are going to just offer fab capacity to anyone that can build on the various technologies that can be built at Intel's fabs.
- mmmBacon 6y ago
  This is not really true. Firstly, the volume for automotive is much higher. 2nd the cost structure is entirely different and a business set up for high cost low volume military parts may not be competitive in automotive with low cost.
  - mc32 6y ago
    I think ramp up is more the issue. The cost of idling plants and ceding market share outweighs any added component cost (within reason).
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
It's something Intel used to be good at until they dismantled all of their other chip lines in the 90's and 00's.

SECProto 6y ago

> It does not necessarily speak well of Intel's current situation, though, with respect to CPU and memory chips, that they consider this a good move. They also announced [1] that they were building two new fabs in Arizona a couple weeks ago. There may just be growing demand for shortened supply chain in the semiconductor space (recent trade/tariff wars, chip shortages from offshore fabs, various national security implications) [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/tiriasresearch/2021/03/23/intel-invests-20-billion-in-2-new-arizona-fabs/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/tiriasresearch/2021/03/23/intel...

User23 6y ago

Or maybe Intel leadership sees the big picture and they’re doing their part to help their country.

lovich 6y ago
I needed a good laugh today
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

totalZero 6y ago

Intel is playing a PR angle to win hearts and minds for the homegrown semiconductor push. Even if an automotive IC move to get Congress and the public to appreciate Intel incurs a short term loss, it may be economical in the long term because there's about to be a lot of government money available to the sector. Also, if they want to get busy with foundry, this is the way to do it. It's not like they're doing HPC processors with all the trailing node fabs. I know an engineering researcher who uses a shaft position sensor chip that is also widely employed in EVs. They have been out of stock for months. That little chip could have major implications for many industries and communities. "For want of a nail..."

SavantIdiot 6y ago
A little of both, I think. They do have lots of fab capacity for older process nodes which are ideal of embedded applications. And they do want to boost their PR image, plus they aren't wrong: the industry is kinda effed right now with TWO fires in Japan (most recently Renesas). It's a golden alignment for Intel, and Gelsinger miiiiight be shrewd enough to score a home run. But Intel stock? Eeehhhh.... not a long term hold, they ain't got a play book after this.
- zitterbewegung 6y ago
  A contrary opinion is here by Ian Cutress: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaB1WuFUAtw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaB1WuFUAtw I think that Intel does have two plays left. 1. Appeal to the government that they can't go beyond their current process node and the government preorders a bunch of processors to do this. 2. Intel abandons new process nodes and becomes a customer of TSMC. If Intel thinks about doing #2 I think the government would be forced to do #1 for the sole fact of keeping chip manufacturing knowledge in the US
  - SavantIdiot 6y ago
    I see #1 happening, but I'm not sure how #2 would play out. Hundreds of billions of dollars spent on fabs, with close to 80% of their employees working in fabs 24/7. That would crater several towns in the US (Chandler, Santa Clara, Portland come time mind), and just be throwing away money. One hell of a capital loss! I think there are too many people high up at intel getting stinky rich to throw the company under the buss like that. But then again it might happen, you're not the first to suggest it.

hkmurakami 6y ago

Former automotive R&D guy here. It was quite some time ago but my colleagues in the chip department (we were all new grads at the time) were telling me that they were designing chips with triple redundancy. "Hood Space" is a fierce competition among vendors to get into car models 5 years in the future, but miniaturization needs are nowhere near that of the consumer electronic space (this was shocking to me, having been raised in SV in a family working in the PC industry!) Fast forward some years later and I was working at a motion sensor company for consumer electronics. Our node sizes were like 40-50nm and many generations behind cutting edge ICs. Lower margins but meaningful volume. Our fab was naturally, you guessed it, TSMC.

robomartin 6y ago

The problem we have ("we" meaning the US and Europe) is that we have allowed a massive portion of the semiconductor mechanism to leave our shores. In a world where electronics are found in just about everything, this is a pretty bad situation to be in. We are in the process of developing a commercial product that will require manufacturing at a rate of 10K to 20K units per month. When we started this work, semiconductor availability wasn't a significant concern. At the start of this year we started to receive quotes with lead times in the order of 52 weeks. Yes, a whole year. Some of the chips we designed into this product became unobtainium. Well. Not quite. We discovered the supply is plentiful in China. And, of course, pricing is insane. A device that was $0.70 is now over three dollars in China. And, again, of course, the only way you can buy it is if you have your boards manufactured by the supplier. In our case this would mean a contract for 10K to 20K units per month having to leave the prospects of US-based manufacturing --which is already a difficult proposition under normal circumstances. Never mind roads and bridges. We don't need to touch any of that. We need to dump that money into rebuilding industries and reducing their costs of operation to the bone. Let me put it this way. Everyone can understand that something like a basic Arduino is a very simple product. In electronics terms, on par with making cloth masks. Well, if you had to manufacture a simple Arduino in the US or Europe today, it would be impossible. Much as is the case for masks, the raw components needed to make such a product are not made in the US and Europe. You might be able to have the raw PCB's made. I would not be surprised if the raw materials for that process were not made in the US and Europe as well (I didn't look into it, so I can't make that assertion). Even if you could make one, the end-user cost would likely be over a hundred dollars per unit (if the components were made in the US and Europe). That's were we are today. And this isn't going to get any better by fixing roads and bridges. We need to focus on what is truly important. We needed to do this ten or twenty years ago. This effort by Intel might not be all it is reported to be. I just hope it is an indication that we are starting to understand what we are standing on...and it isn't solid ground.

ChuckNorris89 6y ago
>Well, if you had to manufacture a simple Arduino in the US or Europe today, it would be impossible. I think you have no idea what you're talking about. In Europe at least, there are plenty of fabs that make microcontrollers like the Arduino. And the original Arduino boards (w)are made in Italy which last I checked is still in Europe. >Much as is the case for masks, the raw components needed to make such a product are not made in the US and Europe. In Europe we have also plenty of factories making FFP2 masks (my favorite ones I can buy in Austria ATM come from a brand made in the Czech Republic).

rorykoehler 6y ago

2nd hand cars have become 20% more expensive here in Germany this year (anecdotal based on just buying a used car). This is a good move because Intel are being agile and focused on solving a real problem. This speaks well for how they will respond more generally. They know it isn't below them.

criddell 6y ago
Used cars are expensive in the US right now too. We had a car that wasn't being used very often so my wife suggested we look into selling it. Went to the website of one of those places that gives you an offer online and the offer seemed to good to be true. Took it in to them and walked out with a check for the full amount.

throwaway4good 6y ago

So they are going to become a contract manufacturer of +300 nm chips that are sold a few dollars a piece? How is that going be a good business for them?

baybal2 6y ago
It's a good business for some. Automotive is sold at n times the markup of commodity chips.

jillesvangurp 6y ago

Actually, modern vehicle manufacturing is mostly bottle-necked on software and much of the added value comes via software powered by hardware accelerated machine learning. So performance matters, a lot. Legacy car manufacturers are basically playing catch up with the likes of Tesla (doing their own chips) or Waymo (nvidia, I believe) to fix their supply chain to not have dozens of poorly integrated black boxes so they can actually update them in a sane way. E.g. VW has been struggling in the last year to get that working with the ID3. They are working with Infineon on chips for this apparently. Other manufacturers are facing similar challenges and are getting there with various levels of success. E.g. if you want to update your Kia EV, you need to go to the dealer. So, the market opportunity for Intel is making performant SOC aimed at these manufacturers that can keep up with the market leaders and can be used while they figure out to get from level 2/3 autonomy to level 5. There probably is a market for dumb EVs as well without much intelligence but that also implies low margins. Anything ICE is basically what it is at this point. R&D is basically limited to milking those legacy product lines until they are eventually shut down. So that's not a good market for Intel either. There are plenty of low margin/low performance manufacturers where Intel stands no chance of ramping up to volumes of sales that would compensate for the low margins. So, high end EV manufacturers with some ambitions on the autonomous driving front is the market for this. Anything else does not make sense for Intel. The only question is if they keep on insisting on x86. IMHO if they do, they are going to fail, again. Like they failed in the mobile market. The right moment to start targeting this market was 10 to 5 years ago. They are already late.

whatever1 6y ago
Why this obsession with dropping x86? Do we have any evidence that arm offers better performance & thermals at the same processing node? Only one arm chip today really competes with x86 and it is in 5nm node whereas amd is at 7 and intel at 10
- jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
  If the reporting I've read is accurrate, the x86 ISA is a limitation on decoder width. Intel and AMD's attempts to go above 4 parallel decoders have failed. Apple is shipping 8 way today.

baybal2 6y ago

Yes, but making otherwise 180nm+ chips on their still very advanced fabs would've been a disaster unless automotive's very , very fat margins. It still shows the level of desperation there.

ksec 6y ago

May be it is from Pat Gelsinger, so I am uncharacteristically optimistic about it. 1. Intel needs to clear Fab Capacity if they were to move to higher node. This is always a problem in the Fab industry. Normally Intel just scale whatever product line up they have that fits. 2. Car will be the next SemiConductor Battle Ground. It will just be a large computer, lots of sensors with battery moving around. Intel already has MobileEye, they might as well partner with these largest Car manufacture on Chip design for future growth. This is the same play with 5G although Intel seriously messed it up. 3. It also make political wins and help with their change in direction of Custom Foundry or now called Intel Foundry Services. For me this is a brilliant move. Assuming they execute it perfectly. Some short term pain and lots of long term gain. Which is what I like. A vision and strategy how they are going to win. Something that was lacking with the previous Intel.

PaulHoule 6y ago

The auto industry is also moving towards smaller geometry parts. Not least of all is the sensors, self-driving, telematics, radios and such. There are issues in terms of environmental conditions, aging and such, but it is happening. Conversely, a lot of the trouble with 10nm and smaller manufacturing is that they shrank the transistors but didn't shrink the dies -- or rather, the ones that did succeed didn't "make a giant 5nm CPU" but they decided to make chiplets instead. If you really could make the monolithic 5nm part it would crush the chiplets in terms of economics since advanced packaging is more like circuit board assembly than lithography. Maybe they can do it now with new pellicles, but today small geometry parts go good with small dies.