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Intel Arizona Fab most sophiticated in the world?

Arthur Hanson

Well-known member
I'm listening to a Bloomberg Studio 1.0 interview where Bob Swan stated their 10nm Chandler Arizona fab is one of the most sophisticated if not the most sophisticated in the world. I find this statement beyond any reality and would appreciate any comments on how this statement could even be made. An Intel cultural issue, a misjudgment, a plain mistake or delusional? Where does this really put Intel in the game? Seems a long way from the Andy Grove days of only the paranoid survive. Any comments, opinions or elaboration on this would be appreciated. Stock trading is all about perception many times, more than reality. Money is made both ways, up and down. This is why I'm asking the question.
 
I doubt Bob Swan was speaking from first hand experience here. I have been in many more fabs than most people and I can tell you that without a doubt TSMC has the most sophisticated high volume logic fabs in the world. Samsung would own the #1 spot for memory fabs. Because when you get down to it, it does not matter how "sophisticated" your fab is, if it doesn't yield then it does not count, my opinion.


I'm listening to a Bloomberg Studio 1.0 interview where Bob Swan stated their 10nm Chandler Arizona fab is one of the most sophisticated if not the most sophisticated in the world. I find this statement beyond any reality and would appreciate any comments on how this statement could even be made. An Intel cultural issue, a misjudgment, a plain mistake or delusional? Where does this really put Intel in the game? Seems a long way from the Andy Grove days of only the paranoid survive. Any comments, opinions or elaboration on this would be appreciated. Stock trading is all about perception many times, more than reality. Money is made both ways, up and down. This is why I'm asking the question.
 
I doubt Bob Swan was speaking from first hand experience here. I have been in many more fabs than most people and I can tell you that without a doubt TSMC has the most sophisticated high volume logic fabs in the world. Samsung would own the #1 spot for memory fabs. Because when you get down to it, it does not matter how "sophisticated" your fab is, if it doesn't yield then it does not count, my opinion.

The mess Andy Bryant made is that bad.
 
I'm listening to a Bloomberg Studio 1.0 interview where Bob Swan stated their 10nm Chandler Arizona fab is one of the most sophisticated if not the most sophisticated in the world. I find this statement beyond any reality and would appreciate any comments on how this statement could even be made. An Intel cultural issue, a misjudgment, a plain mistake or delusional? Where does this really put Intel in the game? Seems a long way from the Andy Grove days of only the paranoid survive. Any comments, opinions or elaboration on this would be appreciated. Stock trading is all about perception many times, more than reality. Money is made both ways, up and down. This is why I'm asking the question.
I don't know what he was smoking, but I can't see *any* objective reason behind this claim -- compared to TSMC/Samsung the Intel fab is smaller, lower yield, less cost-effective, has fewer advanced EUV machines (which most would say is the real measure of "sophisticated") -- and the competition is already in high-yield HVM where the Intel fab is still ramping up.

Aah, got it, I've just spotted what his initials are... ;-)
 
The MT8192 will take market share from intel. If Intel stuck at 14 nm and don't improve architecture responsiveness there will be pain and suffering, some more and then some.
 
Well, if your competitor is more advanced then you are, you're not going to admit it on radio, are you?

Intel can always find a metric in which they are "best" or "most advanced", it's probably just what benchmark you look at. Probably, they have the most advanced cobalt semiconductor-process or something.

In another perspective;q

Tesla was boasting they had "the most advanced car production line" in the world, as it was the most automated.
Only problem is, it wasn't working and it was / is full of waste (non-value adding activities).

And robots / automated lines / AI, well, they're terrible at recognizing waste / quality problems, and fixing them; that's why Toyota has been firing robots and hiring people the last few years. People spot the non-value adding activities done by robots and quality issues, so the factory improves. Tesla learned it the hard way, as Elon Musk - trying to figure out what was failing in the "non-human production hall" - had to do robot-calibration himself during night hours.

So, who has the most advanced factory? Tesla, with all their automation and lots of non-value adding robots? Or Toyota?
 
Tesla has gotten a lot better. They brag and rush in ill-prepared, but they also iterate and fix things. Musk calibrating robots was a long time ago. And there is something to be said for having a gut understanding of the robots. Model Y cam up well ahead of schedule, as well as Shanghai, and they get a lot of vehicles out of Fremont these days.
But most important they build a better car. Toyota decided to back the Trump destruction of the efficiency rules. I've got a Tesla and a Toyota in this household, and the next replacement in a few years is very unlikely to be a new Toyota.
 
> but they also iterate and fix things.

Well, exactly: "They" refers to human beings. Humans fixed things; they decided what the problem was and if automation / AI was a solution or not.

I think that's a great example of how the "sophistication" of a factory really depends on the humans supporting / running the factory, and not on the robots, AI or level of automation.
 
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