4 ms·

TSMC has 83000 employees. If Intel does everything TSMC & NV do, then they should have something like 83000+36000~120000 employees?

paxys 1y ago
The scale isn't really comparable. TSMC manufactures 5x more wafers than Intel, and the disparity is getting exponentially worse every year (see the chart at https://thecuberesearch.com/247-special-breaking-analysis-the-root-cause-of-intels-troubles-a-critical-analysis/ https://thecuberesearch.com/247-special-breaking-analysis-th...). In fact 30% of Intel's own production is outsourced to TSMC.
- nateglims 1y ago
  There's other reasons to think it, but 5x wafers on 8x staff seems within the realm of comparable.
  - cjbgkagh 1y ago
    My reading of the numbers it should be 0.8x staff. I think you’re off by an order of magnitude.
    - nateglims 1y ago
      I sure am. Whoops.
- RC_ITR 1y ago
  Sure but that's different than your original point.
- mensetmanusman 1y ago
  The world isn’t the panning for the 2027 takeover.
  - saagarjha 1y ago
    Of what?
    - Grosvenor 1y ago
      Taiwan.
    - mike_hearn 1y ago
      2027 is the date the CCP has announced for when it'll be militarily ready to invade Taiwan. Whether they actually do so or not is an open question.
- dapperdrake 1y ago
  The scale also isn’t linear.
mschuster91 1y ago
> If Intel does everything TSMC & NV do, then they should have something like 83000+36000~120000 employees? TSMC is a fab, not a chip designer. And NV makes GPUs and small scale SoCs like the ones in the Nintendo Switch and automotive (IIRC the Tegra SoC that powered the Switch 1 literally was an automotive chip that they repurposed). That's quite the difference from what Intel makes: CPUs that power a lot of the world's compute capacity for laptops, PCs and servers, wireless chips (Bluetooh+WiFi), their own GPU line...
- dahart 1y ago
  > IIRC the Tegra SoC that powered the Switch 1 literally was an automotive chip that they repurposed Tegra was designed for mobile devices like smartphones. The automotive part came later and isn’t particularly relevant. Intel also makes low power SoCs for mobile devices, e.g. Atom.
  - mschuster91 1y ago
    > Intel also makes low power SoCs for mobile devices, e.g. Atom. Last time I heard that name was well over a decade ago for crappy "netbook" devices. Just looked it up, last Atom CPU was released in 2013 per Wikipedia [1]. They might still make them for embedded computing purposes with very long life cycles, but no idea at which volume. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Atom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Atom
    - kasabali 1y ago
      They still make them, they're just not called Atom anymore.

paxys 1y ago

The scale isn't really comparable. TSMC manufactures 5x more wafers than Intel, and the disparity is getting exponentially worse every year (see the chart at https://thecuberesearch.com/247-special-breaking-analysis-the-root-cause-of-intels-troubles-a-critical-analysis/ https://thecuberesearch.com/247-special-breaking-analysis-th...). In fact 30% of Intel's own production is outsourced to TSMC.

nateglims 1y ago
There's other reasons to think it, but 5x wafers on 8x staff seems within the realm of comparable.
- cjbgkagh 1y ago
  My reading of the numbers it should be 0.8x staff. I think you’re off by an order of magnitude.
  - nateglims 1y ago
    I sure am. Whoops.
RC_ITR 1y ago
Sure but that's different than your original point.
mensetmanusman 1y ago
The world isn’t the panning for the 2027 takeover.
- saagarjha 1y ago
  Of what?
  - Grosvenor 1y ago
    Taiwan.
  - mike_hearn 1y ago
    2027 is the date the CCP has announced for when it'll be militarily ready to invade Taiwan. Whether they actually do so or not is an open question.
dapperdrake 1y ago
The scale also isn’t linear.

mschuster91 1y ago

> If Intel does everything TSMC & NV do, then they should have something like 83000+36000~120000 employees? TSMC is a fab, not a chip designer. And NV makes GPUs and small scale SoCs like the ones in the Nintendo Switch and automotive (IIRC the Tegra SoC that powered the Switch 1 literally was an automotive chip that they repurposed). That's quite the difference from what Intel makes: CPUs that power a lot of the world's compute capacity for laptops, PCs and servers, wireless chips (Bluetooh+WiFi), their own GPU line...

dahart 1y ago
> IIRC the Tegra SoC that powered the Switch 1 literally was an automotive chip that they repurposed Tegra was designed for mobile devices like smartphones. The automotive part came later and isn’t particularly relevant. Intel also makes low power SoCs for mobile devices, e.g. Atom.
- mschuster91 1y ago
  > Intel also makes low power SoCs for mobile devices, e.g. Atom. Last time I heard that name was well over a decade ago for crappy "netbook" devices. Just looked it up, last Atom CPU was released in 2013 per Wikipedia [1]. They might still make them for embedded computing purposes with very long life cycles, but no idea at which volume. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Atom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Atom
  - kasabali 1y ago
    They still make them, they're just not called Atom anymore.