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The problem is that the barrier to entry to producing ARM processors isn't that high. ARM will allow anyone who is paying the licensing fee to become a license
by Ozarkian 2y ago
The problem is that the barrier to entry to producing ARM processors isn't that high. ARM will allow anyone who is paying the licensing fee to become a licensee, and then you can build at TSMC or Globalfoundries or any other fab that will take you.
Intel can't compete in that market. The margins are too low: they're organized and staffed to a higher margin business. They're used to the high operating margins of x86. Now that their competition (mainly AMD) has become competent in the past ten years and x86 is decreasing in importance, they're losing their main competitive advantage.
- lbourdages 2y agoWhat's their way out then? Pray that AMD messes up and stops making competitive chips?
- jaredhallen 2y agoWhat if they used their resources and expertise to push RISC-V into a position that it could compete in the mobile and datacenter markets?
- dartos 2y agoYou mean intel? Then they’d be moving into an even lower margin business. If you mean ARM… then they’d be helping the competition
- farseer 2y agoThey can do that with ARM as well, the license cost won't bother Intel. The parent argument regarding lack of margins stands.
- ffgjgf1 2y agoWhat would they ever gain by that? If they can’t build decent x86 chips when they only have a single competitor switching to an inferior architecture (in the sense that it would require massive investment for it to catch up with x86) with no entry barriers for new competitors would be one of the most absurd things they could ever do.
- JonChesterfield 2y agoPay large salaries to the executives and lobby the government for more funding while their competition accelerates away.
- Keyframe 2y agoYou joke, but if past is any indicator..
- Dalewyn 2y agoActually invest and invest hard in new technologies, cutting off fat and even muscle if that must be done. There is a reason Intel Foundries is belching red ink while the rest of Intel is getting Gelsinger'ed to stave it.
- dralley 2y ago> The margins are too low: they're organized and staffed to a higher margin business. Intel has a massive fab capacity problem right now, in that their fabs aren't being utilized. Doing manufacturing of a high-volume product is exactly what they need, and if that high volume product is their own - all the better.
- Dalewyn 2y agoIntel has a massive fab capacity problem because their fabs are too retarded[1] now even for themselves[2], let alone others in the market. [1]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/retard https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/retard [2]: https://www.techpowerup.com/323700/tsmc-begins-3-nm-production-for-intels-lunar-lake-and-arrow-lake-tiles https://www.techpowerup.com/323700/tsmc-begins-3-nm-producti...
- poikroequ 2y agoAre there any US fabricators of ARM chips? Any fabricators in any Western nation? If not, Intel could have tapped into the markets for defense and national security.