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Intel warns US stake could hurt international sales, future grants

Daniel Nenni

Admin
Staff member
Intel 3.0 Logo SemiWiki.jpg


WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Intel said on Monday that the U.S. government's 9.9% stake in the chipmaker could pose risks to its business, from potentially harming international sales to limiting its ability to secure future government grants.

The company laid out new risk factors in a securities filing after the government decided to convert $11 billion in government grants into an equity stake in Intel, the latest extraordinary intervention in corporate America by President Donald Trump.

Separately, Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan said in a video posted on Monday by the Commerce Department that the company did not need the government funding.

"I don't need the grant," Tan said. "But I really look forward to having the U.S. government be my shareholder."

But the filing from Intel raised questions about the U.S. investment. Intel noted, for example, that it is uncertain if the deal may result in other government entities trying to convert existing grants into equity investments or if they might be unwilling to support future grants.

Intel shares will be acquired with the $5.7 billion in unpaid grants from the 2022 CHIPS and Science semiconductor subsidy law and $3.2 billion awarded to Intel for the Secure Enclave program last year under Trump's predecessor, Democratic President Joe Biden.

"To the maximum extent permissible under applicable law," Intel's obligations under the CHIPS Act will be considered discharged, barring the Secure Enclave program, according to the filing.

Intel's non-U.S. business may also be impacted by the U.S. government being a significant stockholder as this could subject the company to additional regulations or restrictions such as foreign subsidy laws in other countries, the filing said.

Sales outside the United States accounted for 76% of its revenue last year while revenue from China contributed 29% to total revenue.

Trump's deal with Intel came after Tan had a meeting with the president, who had demanded Tan's resignation over his ties to Chinese firms.

The company also said the shares to be issued to the U.S. government at a discount to the current market price are dilutive to existing stockholders.

The government is purchasing Intel shares at a $4 discount to Intel's closing stock price of $24.80 on Friday. Intel shares rose 2% in early trading on Monday to $25.25.

The government's substantial additional powers over laws and regulations impacting Intel may limit the company's ability to pursue transactions that benefit shareholders, the filing said.

 
TSMC’s direct support by Taiwan gov didn’t stop the USG from giving them direct subsidies in the CHIPS Act.

What countries other than China realistically would stop giving Intel deals or change their business climate because of this?

Overall, having USG as a shareholder — even if non-voting — certainly makes an already geopolitically-sensitive industry even messier. Fun times!
 
TSMC’s direct support by Taiwan gov didn’t stop the USG from giving them direct subsidies in the CHIPS Act.

What countries other than China realistically would stop giving Intel deals or change their business climate because of this?

Overall, having USG as a shareholder — even if non-voting — certainly makes an already geopolitically-sensitive industry even messier. Fun times!
Typical SEC filing language. They are obliged to say such and such risk factors.
 
Typical SEC filing language. They are obliged to say such and such risk factors.

Exactly. I do like this quote however:

"I don't need the grant," Tan said. "But I really look forward to having the U.S. government be my shareholder."

That says it all. Same with the Softbank investment. Lip-Bu also bought $25M of INTC when he joined. I expect more of these types of investments so stay tuned! Go Intel 3.0!
 
Now we need to get back to basic questions:
1) Will people commit to buy foundry wafers from Intel someday
2) How much will intel foundry lose in 2026/2027
3) Will Intel get to 2% market share in AI GPU processors

1) Yes I believe fabless companies that do not directly compete with Intel (not AMD or Nvidia) will sign wafer agreements for 18P and 14A. The volume of those wafer agreements are in question. Will they be large, medium, or small? Can Lip-Bu sign a mega deal like Samsung did with Tesla or like TSMC did with Apple? I certainly hope so. The most likely candidates are Arm, Microsoft, AWS, QCOM, Broadcom, Marvell, MediaTek and Apple.

I can tell you that Lip-Bu is friendly with Hock Tan of Broadcom (no relation).

#2 and #3 are above my pay grade.
 
Exactly. I do like this quote however:

"I don't need the grant," Tan said. "But I really look forward to having the U.S. government be my shareholder."

That says it all. Same with the Softbank investment. Lip-Bu also bought $25M of INTC when he joined. I expect more of these types of investments so stay tuned! Go Intel 3.0!
I suspect we ought to read that just as we would a Trump quote - seriously, but not literally as many often say.

I would be astonished if this is what LBT really believes.

Let's assume for a moment that he does. If a 10% government stake is good, why stop there ? Wouldn't 20% be even better ? Why not 100% ?

I've said this before: not all investors are of equal value and not all will help direct a company in the best direction.

I realise I'm contradicting some of my earlier statements about the US government deserving an equity stake in Intel in return for investment here. There's some theoretical merit in that. I just don't see how this works in practice. I'm certainly struggling to find many historic examples where Western governments have successfully backed semiconductor companies. And certainly not in comparison to the returns on private commercial investments.
 
I actually think the USG stake will help Intel. It will add clarity that IFS won't go out of business in near future ... which will help give a little more confidence to perspective customers.

I'd also expect Trump to figure out way to incent customers to use Intel. (but don't know the details of what this would be)

There is a big change-over cost (and risk) for the "Top 5" customers to use Intel -- this is still a big issue.
 
If US companies are forced to use inferior products, just for the sake of national security, so be it. Ex: Apple iPhone 6s fiasco, customers returned "Samsung inside" for "tsmc inside" iPhones. When I was an elementary kid decades ago, my teacher taught us that in the US, American only long for gold medal. Silver and bronze are for "Losers".
 
If US companies are forced to use inferior products, just for the sake of national security, so be it. Ex: Apple iPhone 6s fiasco, customers returned "Samsung inside" for "tsmc inside" iPhones. When I was an elementary kid decades ago, my teacher taught us that in the US, American only long for gold medal. Silver and bronze are for "Losers".

Funny to say, the US government itself, agencies like the DoD, DoE, NASA, and NSA, would never use inferior products to begin with. Can we imagine a US Air Force pilot having to reboot a mission control computer in the middle of an air raid because of CPU overheating or performance degradation? Or DoE scientists wasting excessive amounts of time simulating a nuclear bomb explosion because of slower, unstable processors?
 
If US companies are forced to use inferior products, just for the sake of national security, so be it. Ex: Apple iPhone 6s fiasco, customers returned "Samsung inside" for "tsmc inside" iPhones. When I was an elementary kid decades ago, my teacher taught us that in the US, American only long for gold medal. Silver and bronze are for "Losers".

I remember this quite well. Someone made an app that would tell you which chip your phone had in it :ROFLMAO:. I held onto my iPhone 6, it was a great phone. The reason why Apple split between Samsung 14nm and TSMC 16nm was because 16nm yielded late. As a result the A9 was designed to Samsung 14nm then ported over to TSMC 16nm. TSMC assisted in the porting of course. This was a big bump in the TSMC-Apple relationship but it just made it stronger thanks to Morris Chang.

The TSMC-Apple relationship did not just help TSMC. Apple benefitted from it was well. They went from first in-house SoC to best of class SoC in a very short period of time and you can thank TSMC partially for that. Also, Apple wrote some very big ecosystem checks not unlike what Google, Amazon, and the other fabless system companies do today. Poor Qualcomm was completely blindsided. Apple did the first 64-Bit Arm SoC and I remember QCOM and others saying it was a waste of architecture, you don't need 64-bits in a phone :ROFLMAO:.

Personally I think Apple should invest in Intel and move the M series over.
 
3) Will Intel get to 2% market share in AI GPU processors
I don’t think this will happen before 2030. Gaudi 3 only sold $500 million, and Falcon Shores has been cancelled. The only product left on the roadmap is Jaguar Shores, which is positioned as a rack-scale solution. However, given that Nvidia and AMD are already leading in rack-scale offerings, it’s hard to imagine Intel gaining even 2% market share solely with Jaguar Shores.
 
Funny to say, the US government itself, agencies like the DoD, DoE, NASA, and NSA, would never use inferior products to begin with. Can we imagine a US Air Force pilot having to reboot a mission control computer in the middle of an air raid because of CPU overheating or performance degradation? Or DoE scientists wasting excessive amounts of time simulating a nuclear bomb explosion because of slower, unstable processors?

They use outdated products, Sandia Labs and GlobalFoundries for example. Sandia labs is 350nm on 200mm wafers. The US government treats GF as a trusted foundry even though it is majority owned by a foreign government and is using outdated technology. What is the USG going to use for AI infused chips? TSMC in AZ is the only choice and that will be N-1 without a facility security clearance.

Intel is the only choice for the US Government to have secure leading edge semiconductors.
 
They use outdated products, Sandia Labs and GlobalFoundries for example. Sandia labs is 350nm on 200mm wafers. The US government treats GF as a trusted foundry even though it is majority owned by a foreign government and is using outdated technology. What is the USG going to use for AI infused chips? TSMC in AZ is the only choice and that will be N-1 without a facility security clearance.

Intel is the only choice for the US Government to have secure leading edge semiconductors.
I honestly have no idea how many times you’ll have to repeat that last point before people get it.
 
I don’t think this will happen before 2030. Gaudi 3 only sold $500 million, and Falcon Shores has been cancelled. The only product left on the roadmap is Jaguar Shores, which is positioned as a rack-scale solution. However, given that Nvidia and AMD are already leading in rack-scale offerings, it’s hard to imagine Intel gaining even 2% market share solely with Jaguar Shores.

Intel presented two chips at the Hot Chips Conference today. Great presentations, both presenters actually looked like their LinkedIn photos which is rare:

- Introducing the Next Generation Intel® Xeon® Processor with Efficiency Cores Don Soltis, Intel

- Intel Mount Morgan Infrastructure Processing Unit (IPU) Patrick Fleming, Intel


We will be writing about them shortly. Don was very good. He was at HP Fort Collins for 19 years and Intel for 20. He is my age. Clearwater Forest is chiplets based on Intel 18A, Intel 3, and Intel 7 using BSPD and Foveros.

Patrick is 24 years at Intel, from Ireland, very impressive guy. An IPU is also known as a DPU. Mount Morgan is on TSMC N5.
 
We will be writing about them shortly. Don was very good. He was at HP Fort Collins for 19 years and Intel for 20. He is my age. Clearwater Forest is chiplets based on Intel 18A, Intel 3, and Intel 7 using BSPD and Foveros.
it's using Hybrid Bonding with Cu-Cu Bonding as well along with EMIB it's really a marvel of packing more than the Foundry process considering each individual tile is 55m2 on 18A with 24 Cores and 350mm2 Intel 3T base die
Here is the Die Shot For ClearWater Forest
1756201594801.jpeg
 
They use outdated products, Sandia Labs and GlobalFoundries for example. Sandia labs is 350nm on 200mm wafers. The US government treats GF as a trusted foundry even though it is majority owned by a foreign government and is using outdated technology. What is the USG going to use for AI infused chips? TSMC in AZ is the only choice and that will be N-1 without a facility security clearance.

Intel is the only choice for the US Government to have secure leading edge semiconductors.
However the total annual volumes needed by the US military and government (DoD, DoE, NASA, NSA...) wouldn't keep a gigafab -- Intel or TSMC -- running for a day, and certainly not pay for even a tiny fraction of the cost...

If the customer was big-volume US customers (e.g. Apple) wanting the security of having onshore production then that would be different -- but for them having the most advanced technology delivered on schedule with the best yield and IP ecosystem and lowest cost are far more important, which is why they choose TSMC and why Intel has such a huge mountain to climb.
 
If US companies are forced to use inferior products, just for the sake of national security, so be it. Ex: Apple iPhone 6s fiasco, customers returned "Samsung inside" for "tsmc inside" iPhones. When I was an elementary kid decades ago, my teacher taught us that in the US, American only long for gold medal. Silver and bronze are for "Losers".
Please check the real world:
A higher proportion of gold medals is a characteristic of authoritarian states(Communist countries).
 

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