Intel let the chips fall where they might
nextplatform.com
nextplatform.com
AMD and Nvidia will always be beholden to TSMC - yes, they avoid the capital outlay and risk of foundries, but they also give up the possible upside of owning the foundry.
Perhaps intel will never be as dominant as they once were, but as the computing market grows there’s a growing pie to share in regardless.
It's like like there's some law of nature that means Apple will always be on top. We'll see what Intel does - they might go down the RISCV path for all we know, wherein their own talent richness may well put them at an advantage.
Similarly is TSMC falls behind there's other fabs out there, like Samsung, or even Intel.
They might want to have a third party foundry business but at the moment they don't have a credible one.
So they have massive historic and prospective capital investment and a cost base focused on difficult or uncertain markets.
Add to this poor recent execution and you have a toxic mix.
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1: https://www.intc.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/1563/...
Intel's single quarter performance in that market is quite a different thing altogether with short term post pandemic issues and Intel's own competitive struggles.
Basically, as a former Intel employee, Intel is ripe for being disrupted. (The employees only want to follow the rules and believe the rules will last forever.) Why it hasn't been disrupted yet, is a bit harder to explain.
Disruption is overrated. It's a lot harder to do than it is to think about or wish for. Neither Nvidia or AMD have "disrupted" Intel. Only Apple came close to that and even then only in theory, and only in their own walled garden market. If they were selling M-chips to everyone, you MIGHT have disruption, but that's easier said than done because there's an enormous list of tasks that need executed to a T that has to be completed. Everyone wants to be the disruptor, usually without the vision, talent, or execution, when "just making a lot of money" is also a fine goal that seems to be overlooked. Nvidia was always more likely to disrupt Intel with their ARM chips, but again, easier to dream about than execute. Hasn't happened. It's not that easy nor is it truly done often.
Especially the concept of sustainably making money is dismissed outright by nearly everyone. Here in the US it's all about the "bottom line" and quarterly executive bonuses. They love their reorgs. It's a broken model. While the Japanese, such as at Toyota, do a good job out of national honor. We can't compete with that sense of national pride. Western employees are broken culturally, and largely due to decades of watching the rich take it all as their prospects dwindle. Most of it lay at the feet of management though, as we made quality stuff in decades past.
I'd prefer to execute in a disciplined manner with quality output, something I could be proud of and fairly compensated for. Sustainably "just getting rich", Toyota style. That's not good enough in the US, we prefer booms and bust, then ending up broke. Best case for an American company is ending up a zombie corporation reliant on endless bailouts while claiming they're too big to fail. Even financial organizations that do nothing but sign documents as "product", reissuing Federal Reserve loans at usury rates, and would leave no gap upon disappearing overnight. To be replaced with a more rational actor that will be more responsible with such an easy way to make money.
At some point the Americans are going to have to realize that disruption can also be simply be delivering quality, reliably for decades. Toyota vs GM/Ford is a perfect example, as they were definitely disrupted. Being the market leader, dominating while getting rich is too longterm for us though.
Apologies for this excessive screed. This topic always bugs me. If I'm wrong, I'd appreciate it someone correct me so I can be a bit less pessimistic.
I don't write Intel of but they have a LOT of catching up to do.
Promised fab shrinks and CPUs are years behind schedule. The sapphire rapids Xeon chip is in it's 12th revision and despite being 1.5 years late looks to be another 6-7 months out. It was originally going to compete with Zen3 Epyc chips and now looks like the Zen 4 Epycs will have a good head start.
Apparently the GPU effort is also years behind, failing to meet numerous previous timelines, and still has an uncertain future.
Optane never quite delivered and has been killed off.
So major setbacks in servers, fabs, desktop chips, storage and GPUs.
The semiconductor shortage has helped intel, better to buy an Intel server than wait a year for an AMD ... but that only works until AMD can meet demand.
Can Intel turn it around, sure. Will that happen? Seems far from sure. Today's situation has been years in the making and it's far from clear if the fixes have been made.
Sigh ... Don't use history analogies if you get them wrong.
By virtue of being one of the five companies (while also being the largest) you’re going to easily get the money.
As for why, fabs are a tremendous resource for a specialized economy and will easily become a national security risk due to how wide spread they are in the military and to sell advanced products.
There’s also a de globalization movement that’s been underway for nearly a decade. Having a country whose neighbors aren’t in a politically stable region of the world is a future disaster. It’s also proven to be a disastrous domestic policy where supply constraints crunches every company.
It’s likely going to take a decade to resolve the supply chain issues and it nearly takes half a decade to bring a new fab online.
edit: spelling
Say force them to open source chips older than a decade.
I wouldn't want us to fall behind on chip tech though.
AMD was bailed out for years as Intel was king, and it’s a good thing they were.
It’s important to realize the lawsuit could easily have survived past the point where AMD failed as a company. Just as patents get sold off so too can potential damages from lawsuits.
You think Intel would settle all those lawsuits if Intel did nothing wrong?
Not the same thing at all.
If nobody subsidized their industries, then maybe we could do just fine without subsidizing ours. In today's world, not subsidizing key industries is unilateral disarmament. It'd be like the USA unilaterally giving up all its nuclear weapons while Russia, China, North Korea, etc. still have theirs and hoping everyone plays nice.
Ask Russia how not having domestic chip fab capability is working out for them.
We have to pay to play. Unless we're cool with not manufacturing chips domestically.
Not to mention most bailouts don't have clawbacks like the CHIPS act.
DRAM and NAND are so well optimised in terms of cost and scale ( Which was the reason why Optane failed to compete ). It is like the lithium Battery. Whenever there is a "Revolution Battery", it has to pass the check list [1].
Can we call this "the Nokia effect"?
If you meant to refer to the entire computer hardware market, you're wrong by an order of magnitude.
iPhone Revenue 2021: $191.9 billion
Computer Hardware Revenue 2021: $1,129.39 billion
That's why it's a misleading claim.
I didn't expect I would have to elaborate this beyond what I said. My bad.
Or to paraphrase Papa Steve: the only problem with other tech companies is that they have no taste.
Related note: Intel was in the bidding process for the original iPhone chip and lost to Samsung, partially because Intel's chip was too expensive for their liking. Apple really expects its vendors to be able to take a haircut on unit pricing and make it back up in volume, which isn't exactly Intel's thing. Had Intel met Apple's requirements they may have dissuaded Apple from getting into chip design in the first place.
Calling Apple a lifestyle company kind of diminishes the relentless innovation they’ve demonstrated for decades.
It reminds me how Microsoft, Palm, Nokia, Blackberry dismissed the iPhone in 2007. That didn’t turn out so good for them.
I’m old enough to remember when Intel was an ARM licensee… I’m sure there are some Intel engineers lamenting how all of this could have been different.
Even Google added a "Reject all" button, eventually.
Don't worry Intel, Google and their "strategic AI assets" are only a few years behind you in line, you'll soon have company
It's fitting given the name, no?