Artificer60
Well-known member
THIS!
Desperate measures to save Intel: US reportedly forcing TSMC to buy 49% stake in Intel to secure tariff relief for Taiwan
- Thread starter sonchoy
- Start date
TSMC investing $400B will help the US semiconductor industry though!
Artificer60
Well-known member
Only to a limited degree. It will do nothing to help the US continue to develop logic technology at the leading edge. And for me that is the bottom line. Additional TSMC investments are good for the US economy, but do nothing further to serve US national interests.
Where you build it matters far less than where you develop it, because that is where the critical skills are concentrated. Not to trivialize the value of a good sustaining engineer, but the skills required to sustain a process are easier to come by than the skills required to develop one.
cheesehead
Member
At this point in time I fear it would rather help to cause an excessively huge oversupply for the years to come. Not sure that would actually help the overall industry.
If there was commercial and/or technical justification for such investments today, TSMC would have already committed.
The issue as i understand it is while the money is welcome, it is the know how that Intel was looking for ..
It was reported back during Q1 earnings that Intel / TSMC had explored a joint collaboration that might have a win-win
It was reported back during Q1 earnings that Intel / TSMC had explored a joint collaboration that might have a win-win
No it wasn’t. TSMC specifically denied this rumor.
Dan, That is why I posted the link to the news report that LBT did acknowledge that a meeting took place, and he specifically quoted looking for a "win-win"; Read what you want about it, but that is what was reported.
The win-win comment Lip-Bu made was in regards to Intel being a customer of TSMC and the relationship they have as a result. Intel is one of TSMC's big customers for N3 and they are working on N2 designs. Lip-Bu is trying to clean up the mess that Pat made. I have confirmed this with friends at both Intel and TSMC and as I mentioned before I saw Lip-Bu in Taiwan multiple times over the years as he is a frequent visitor. Thanks to Lip-Bu and team Cadence has a very close partnership with TSMC.
TSMC also has a VERY close relationship with AMD and that is a big threat to Intel. Lip-Bu needs to make sure TSMC treats Intel with the same amount of respect as AMD and Nvidia. The whole concept of "frenemies" is a very slippery slope. Pat Gelsinger made derogatory statements against TSMC, AMD, and Nvidia which were not appreciated. Remember, CC Wei, Lisa Su, and Jensen Huang are close friends.
Either way this thread is about the US Government making TSMC invest in Intel and even taking control of Intel fabs which will not happen, my opinion.
Would it be more accurate to say:
Lip-Bu is trying to clean up the mess that Otellini, Kraznich, Swan, Gelsinger, and (by extension) the Board made?
I was referring to the more recent comments made by Pat G but you are right, and yes I also hold the board accountable. Intel paid the Intel board more than $4M last year and for what?
siliconbruh999
Well-known member
for destroying Intel?
Brian has to be on the top i have not met a single Intel guy that doesn't hate him he was the worst CEO ever to think they passed on pat for him.
MKWVentures
Moderator
Opinions may vary but the data is clear on who was the worst CEO. When impact of the decision come to light, it will be clear.
Artificer60
Well-known member
By just about any metric you want to roll out there I'm still convinced the Krzanich's record places him head and shoulders above the competition.
Stop investing in fabs - Krzanich.
Leave the LTD leadership in place while they floundered around for 5+ years - Krzanich.
Watch the foundry efforts flounder - Krzanich.
Fail to develop processes that would benefit Altera while they owned it - Krzanich.
Fail to see the need to adapt Intel foundry services to use industry standard practices - Krzanich.
And my personal favorite, deciding that he should be the star of a reality show instead of working on fixing intel's problems - Krzanich.
Gelsinger is certainly guilty of spending like a drunken sailor on a three-day bender, but at least he was spending to try to address the errors of his predecessor. Krzanich spent all of his time digging holes.
siliconbruh999
Well-known member
who was the one who made Intel lost it's lead in CPU and Foundry who was the reason that apple decided to stop using Intel
I think if Pat had been made CEO in 2013 instead of 2020, I think he would have actually done better.
On the negative side - he wouldn't have had the VMWare CEO experience. That probably also gave him some maturity in character.. (and yes he needed more).
However, Intel had plenty of cash and revenue, and I think he would have helped Intel get 10nm to work more quickly than (didn't) happen under Kraznich or Swan. Intel would also have not started to hedge it's bets - bouncing between TSMC and Intel fabs, which is worse IMO than either going 'all in' or 'all out'. I also like to think Pat would have had Intel do something to address Ryzen, and there's even a chance Pat may have kept some of their internal AI efforts alive that were killed under Kraznich.
Now with all of those positives, I still think Intel Foundry would still have been a bust under Pat, even with Intel staying on the silicon train and not losing technical (node reliability) reputation. But the balance sheets and products side of the business would have been significantly stronger today.
..
Compare to 2020 where Intel had already swallowed a poison pill for it's fabs, committing massive $$ to TSMC meaning they were always going to have trouble filling fabs beyond "7nm/10nm". Intel was also already in a marketshare death spiral vs. AMD in the server space - a market Intel had fully locked up in 2013. There's a real chance AMD would be gone today if Intel had executed on their original roadmaps laid out around 2013-2014. Ryzen was good, but it was 5 years of Skylake architecture, Intel losing the node advantage, and some lack luster Intel products that gave it the chance to soar.