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What would you do if you are the CEO of Intel?

It’s fun to look back 5 years, good thread redux.

Before we bury Intel too much, just wanted to point out...
How amazing is it that from 2015 to 2021 Intel has been on the same node, has fallen behind by 3 nodes (TSMC is on 5nm), but their aren’t tumbleweeds at all the Intel sites like they’re Kmarts? Something is wrong there, but also right.
I think the surprising rightness of Intel is found in the way they cost reduced and optimized 14nm so that the gap with 5nm isn’t that great. The whole organization, from chip designers to manufacturing sites, participated in extending the life of a node to an extraordinary degree. It’s not something foundries could do.
From what you've obsvered, all of sudden I feel so much sadnesses on Intel. In certain way there isn't too much difference between Intel and some other technology companies when they are facing technology or innovation problems. Many of them stuck in what they have in hand and tried to squeeze evey penny out from the old stuff. Very often it's not because they didn't work hard enough. It's the technology paths and business models they had chosen are not the best one.

By the time they recognize it, there isn't much time allows them to make meaningful change, let alone if corporate culture, financial standing, and market conditions allow them to make change!

I'm thinking DEC, HP, IBM, Lucent/Bell Labs, and possibly Globalfoundries.
 
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From what you've obsvered, all of sudden I feel so much sadnesses on Intel. In certain way there isn't too much difference between Intel and some other technology companies when they are facing technology or innovation problems. Many of them stuck in what they have in hand and tried to squeeze evey penny out from the old stuff. Very often it's not because they didn't work hard enough. It's the technology paths and business models they had chosen are not the best one.

By the time they recognize it, there isn't much time allows them to make meaningful change, let alone if corporate culture, financial standing, and market conditions allow them to make change!

I'm thinking DEC, HP, IBM, Lucent/Bell Labs, and possibly Globalfoundries.

+Motorola sadly

However, like all of those companies though Intel has a choice here. If they choose a culture* that enables they can succeed - even if it's not in the original business they were "built" for..

*Best wishes to Mr. Gelsinger - in my experiences, corporate culture usually starts with the C-Suite or board..
 
There's no perfect candidate for CEO of Intel everyone has and had flaws.
 
From what you've obsvered, all of sudden I feel so much sadnesses on Intel. In certain way there isn't too much difference between Intel and some other technology companies when they are facing technology or innovation problems. Many of them stuck in what they have in hand and tried to squeeze evey penny out from the old stuff. Very often it's not because they didn't work hard enough. It's the technology paths and business models they had chosen are not the best one.

By the time they recognize it, there isn't much time allows them to make meaningful change, let alone if corporate culture, financial standing, and market conditions allow them to make change!

I'm thinking DEC, HP, IBM, Lucent/Bell Labs, and possibly Globalfoundries.

Yes, it's the classic innovators dilemma. It's not because they didn't work hard enough, it's because they did not take seriously a new technology or business model. Intel's downfall started when they refused to manufacture chips for Apple. That one critical decision locked them out of the smartphone market, and the growth of the smartphone market became rocket fuel for fabless ecosystem and enabled TSMC to take the lead.
 

“I am confident that the majority of our 2023 products will be manufactured internally,” he said. “At the same time, given the breadth of our portfolio, it’s likely that we will expand our use of external foundries for certain technologies and products.”

Not sure his "majority of 2023 products will be manufactured internally" meant. Will the majority be calculated by value, quantity, or technology?

Is he betting the whole house on his ability or vision or illusion?
 
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Intel Q4 2020 earnings analyst Q&A transcript:

"Q: As Intel gets to 7nm by 2023, the competition will be one effective node head. TSMC plans to ramp N3 in 2022, and bigger ramp by 2023, while Intel is still ramping its 7nm. What does Intel need to do to match or leapfrog? In those 2-3 years while 10nm/7nm has had issues, the competition is making progress. What is the conceptual state of Intel competitive play when we get to 2023?

Bob Swan: Two points.

(1) Our belief on delivering leadership products. Process technology is very important, but also packaging technology, having a multitude of architectures (CPU to XPU), memory, security, software. The six pillars of technology required to deliver product leadership. Process is important but not the only thing.

(2) We're going to continue to invest in process tech. Some of the progress we made in 7nm is important for the next gen of product. As we leverage six pillars, we will also continue to invest in next gen beyond 7nm,

Pat Gelsinger: Majority of our products in 2023 will be on Intel’s 7nm, but we will have increasing use of external foundry. Intel is committed to building a competitive product with leadership in the marketplace. This means packaging, software, external and internal fabs, and we are confident in delivering a product leadership across all categories. Long term innovations are coming out of research as we look to close gaps and leap ahead of external foundries. Unquestioned leadership in process is our goal. IDM model means we can leverage supply to meet our customers that our competitors don't have. We want to have an unquestionable leadership product."
 
Reuters reports that Intel executives have raised the possibility of licensing chipmaking technology from TSMC or Samsung.

CEO Bob Swan stated:
Broadly speaking, that may mean sharing technologies that we have that they could use or leveraging technologies that others have developed that we can use as well

Stacy Rasgon (analyst with Bernstein) seemed skeptical:
It seems a little weird to me that TSMC would give away to the keys to the kingdom unless there's a sizeable payment that went with it
 

Intel 4th QTR 2020 Earnings Discussion​

 
Reuters reports that Intel executives have raised the possibility of licensing chipmaking technology from TSMC or Samsung.

CEO Bob Swan stated:


Stacy Rasgon (analyst with Bernstein) seemed skeptical:
If Intel's own 7nm technology is so great and on track to be available in 2023 for majority of Intel product release, as stated by Bob and Pat, why on the earth they need to license process technologues from foundries?
 
Intel Q4 2020 earnings analyst Q&A transcript:

"Q: As Intel gets to 7nm by 2023, the competition will be one effective node head. TSMC plans to ramp N3 in 2022, and bigger ramp by 2023, while Intel is still ramping its 7nm. What does Intel need to do to match or leapfrog? In those 2-3 years while 10nm/7nm has had issues, the competition is making progress. What is the conceptual state of Intel competitive play when we get to 2023?

Bob Swan: Two points.

(1) Our belief on delivering leadership products. Process technology is very important, but also packaging technology, having a multitude of architectures (CPU to XPU), memory, security, software. The six pillars of technology required to deliver product leadership. Process is important but not the only thing.

(2) We're going to continue to invest in process tech. Some of the progress we made in 7nm is important for the next gen of product. As we leverage six pillars, we will also continue to invest in next gen beyond 7nm,

Pat Gelsinger: Majority of our products in 2023 will be on Intel’s 7nm, but we will have increasing use of external foundry. Intel is committed to building a competitive product with leadership in the marketplace. This means packaging, software, external and internal fabs, and we are confident in delivering a product leadership across all categories. Long term innovations are coming out of research as we look to close gaps and leap ahead of external foundries. Unquestioned leadership in process is our goal. IDM model means we can leverage supply to meet our customers that our competitors don't have. We want to have an unquestionable leadership product."
Pat Gelsinger: "IDM model means we can leverage supply to meet our customers that our competitors don't have. "

I thought Pat got his CEO job partially because Intel's IDM model runs into serious problem and major customers are leaving or started doing chips design in-house.

Is he talking the other Intel which we don't know?
 

Intel CEO’s New Crusade Pits Investors Against U.S. Interests​


Will more money from tax payers solve Intel's technical difficulties? Currently Intel is not short of cash. Why suddenly more money can help Intel to make some technology breakthrough?
 
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A lot of companies you have experts in selling and in making. With Intel as with a lot of companies it's a catch-22 that if you get a sales CEO you don't have a Fab guy and the other way around.

The only thing the new guy will do is make himself a lot of money.
 
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The only thing the new guy will do is make himself a lot of money.A lot of companies you have experts in selling and in making. With Intel as with a lot of companies it's a catch-22 that if you get a sales CEO you don't have a Fab guy and the other way around.

The only thing the new guy will do is make himself a lot of money.
"The only thing the new guy will do is make himself a lot of money."

Unfortunately we have witnessed this type of behavior too many times.

Some people compare Pat's rejoining Intel to Steve Job's returning to Apple. I'm not sure how true it is.

But I do know Job only took $1 annual salary after his return. A reporter asked Job why he even bother to accept $1 annual salary.

Job's answer was very simple: "With $1 salary, my family is eligible to buy health insurance under Apple's plan".
 
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