Intel Principal Engineer Bemoans Potential TSMC Takeover, Touts Company's 18a Tech Advantage

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Call on Intel management and the U.S. government to retain control over Intel Foundry.

The rumors about Intel and TSMC forming a semiconductor production joint venture have spurred significant reactions among analysts, the industry, and politicians. Needless to say, it was natural for Intel employees to react to the information, too. Joseph Bonetti, Principal Engineering Program Manager at Intel Corp. wrote in a LinkedIn post (embedded below) that the company is about to reclaim its process technology lead and gain customers among fabless chipmakers in the coming years, so handing TSMC control of Intel's manufacturing would be counterproductive.

"Intel Leaders, Intel Board, Trump Administration, please do not sell out and/or give control of Intel Foundry to TSMC, just as Intel is taking a technical lead and getting out of first gear. This would be a horrible, demoralizing mistake," wrote Bonetti.

Contrary to reports suggesting it lags behind a key competitor, Bonetti argues, Intel is making significant advancements in semiconductor manufacturing. The company's latest fabrication process, Intel 3, is already used to make Xeon 6 datacenter processors, while the company's next-generation Intel 18A is nearing completion and is expected to be used to make Panther Lake processors for client PCs later this year. Meanwhile, TSMC's equivalent process technology — N2 (2nm-class) — will only enter mass production phase in late 2025.

Intel is also ahead with its High-NA EUV initiatives. The company acquired two ASML Twinscan EXE machines and is the only chipmaker that has experience working with such tools. Despite financial struggles, Intel Foundry is poised to prove itself with major partners, which makes any potential deal that hands control to a rival a major strategic error.

Many claims in recent reports misrepresent Intel's progress, stresses Bonetti. Some suggest TSMC engineers are needed to get Intel's latest process technologies to work, but Intel 3 has been in mass production for months, and Panther Lake made on Intel 18A is already sampling with laptop manufacturers.

Intel 18A and TSMC N2 both introduce gate-all-around transistors, but Intel's fabrication process includes an additional breakthrough: backside power delivery, which promises to improve efficiency and performance and give Intel's products an edge over those made by TSMC.

The Intel engineer recons that Intel Foundry is currently unprofitable due to massive investments in facilities and equipment, and it has yet to win contracts from major external customers. However, early adoption by Microsoft and Amazon signals confidence in Intel's capabilities. If these efforts succeed, more industry leaders may shift production. To that end, ceding control of Intel Foundry to TSMC would neutralize Intel as a competitor and harm U.S. leadership in the semiconductor industry.


Comments are skeptical, as are most comments about Intel's "light at the end of the tunnel" (oops it was a headlight).

Intel principal engineer bemoans potential TSMC takeover, touts company's 18A tech advantage

Call on Intel management and the U.S. government to retain control over Intel Foundry.

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[blueone]

First of all, a Principal Engineering Program Manager, this person's formal title, is not technically a Principal Engineer. A program manager is a milestone tracker, not a product development engineer. Second, in modern Intel, this is not an especially senior position. I'd confidently guess Intel has thousands of principal engineers, even if this person was currently one of them. (A search on LinkedIn for Intel Principal Engineer returns over 23,000 results. Some of those results will be retired or former PEs, but you get the idea.) My point is that while this employee is entitled to his opinion, it would have been more compelling if a much more senior engineer (like a Fellow or Senior Fellow) was quoted in the article.

 

[MKWVentures]

Intel foundry problem is not about technical capability. Its about economics. Intel cannot afford new technologies. They spend too much money and cannot afford it. If they get some foundry customers, they also have cost vs market price problems.

This will be clear when the announce the financial impacts from 18A.... and state "There were higher than expected costs on 18A as we ramp the technology".

 

[Brady]

What Progam Managers do have is a deep view into the actual status of projects because, ya know, that’s their only job. To MKW’s point though, they rarely have deep insight into financials.

It’s nice to see that Intel still has some confidence and pride in their work left after this half decade of being battered from all angles. You need that to compete and to retain competitive talent. If you can’t have your frontline employees believing in you, then there’s no chance.

 

[Artificer60]

First of all, a Principal Engineering Program Manager, this person's formal title, is not technically a Principal Engineer. A program manager is a milestone tracker, not a product development engineer. Second, in modern Intel, this is not an especially senior position. I'd confidently guess Intel has thousands of principal engineers, even if this person was currently one of them. (A search on LinkedIn for Intel Principal Engineer returns over 23,000 results. Some of those results will be retired or former PEs, but you get the idea.) My point is that while this employee is entitled to his opinion, it would have been more compelling if a much more senior engineer (like a Fellow or Senior Fellow) was quoted in the article.

That said, I feel like there is a huge effort underway to flush all the hard work and sacrifice that Intel employees have put in over the last several years. In under a year we will have 18A in the market and be able to see if Intel can make a go of it or not. I feel like Intel employees have earned the right to see the 18A effort through to the end. And for the record, I don't agree with the sentiment that 18A will not be cost effective. Time will tell if I'm wrong.

 

[Xebec]

I posted this topic earlier and it was deleted.. will be curious if this post stays.

 

[blueone]

What Program Managers do have is a deep view into the actual status of projects because, ya know, that’s their only job. To MKW’s point though, they rarely have deep insight into financials.

I'm not a fan of the program management function in US companies. I repeatedly eliminated the function, when I was allowed to, and asked the engineering managers to do the program management function, which is what used to happen for decades before Agile and other program management paradigms became popular.

The original reasoning for separating out program management from engineering management was to make program management a specialized skillset and area of research, and to provide senior management who were often not technically competent or current with an independent view of program status with a separate reporting line for program managers to the most senior development managers. I found it mostly a waste of headcount and engineering budget.