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Exclusive: Intel's new CEO explores big shift in chip manufacturing business

X

XYang2023

Well-known member
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -Intel's new chief executive is exploring a big change to its contract manufacturing business to win major customers, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters, in a potentially expensive shift from his predecessor's plans.

If implemented, the new strategy for what Intel calls its "foundry" business would entail no longer marketing certain chipmaking technology, which the company had long developed, to external customers, the people said.

 
osnium said:
Does this mean that the 18A development team failed? If so, will the team get fired?
Click to expand...
Since taking the company's helm in March, CEO Lip-Bu Tan has moved fast to cut costs and find a new path to revive the ailing U.S. chipmaker. By June, he started voicing that a manufacturing process that prior CEO Pat Gelsinger bet heavily on, known as 18A, was losing its appeal to new customers, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

To put aside external sales of 18A and its variant 18A-P, manufacturing processes that have cost Intel billions of dollars to develop, the company would have to take a write-off, one of the people familiar with the matter said. Industry analysts contacted by Reuters said such a charge could amount to a loss of hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars.
 
siliconbruh999 said:
Anyone heard something regarding this or is it just another classic Returs hit piece 🤣🤣
Click to expand...
IMHO, this is just Reuters BS like Intel-TSMC JV and Intel 18A yield news before that. Intel is only ramping 18A in Fab 42/52. They need those 2 fab volumes for Intel Products like Panther lake, Wild Cat lake, Clearwater Forrest, Diamond rapids, Nova Lake and now as Intel/Reuters said small volume of chips from Amazon and Microsoft. Why would they write down equipments or intangibles related to that now?

It's like saying skipping 20A will cause millions/ billions of write down (it doesn't and didn't).

Also Intel said they can make 14A chips with EUV multi pattererning. So technically they can use Arizona to fab 14A too (with some mod off course). So it makes no sense to me.
 
dkr1986 said:
IMHO, this is just Reuters BS like Intel-TSMC JV and Intel 18A yield news before that. Intel is only ramping 18A in Fab 42/52. They need those 2 fab volumes for Intel Products like Panther lake, Wild Cat lake, Clearwater Forrest, Diamond rapids, Nova Lake and now as Intel/Reuters said small volume of chips from Amazon and Microsoft. Why would they write down equipments or intangibles related to that now?

It's like saying skipping 20A will cause millions/ billions of write down (it doesn't and didn't).

Also Intel said they can make 14A chips with EUV multi pattererning. So technically they can use Arizona to fab 14A too (with some mod off course). So it makes no sense to me.
Click to expand...
I also suspect that this is a hit piece.

But it is possible that they will no longer market 18A to external customers, as many folks have pointed out that the 18A PDK is not ideal for external use.
 
kevin01 said:
I also suspect that this is a hit piece.

But it is possible that they will no longer market 18A to external customers, as many folks have pointed out that the 18A PDK is not ideal for external use.
Click to expand...
They don't market 18A but I guess they could still market 18A-P?
 
kevin01 said:
I also suspect that this is a hit piece.

But it is possible that they will no longer market 18A to external customers, as many folks have pointed out that the 18A PDK is not ideal for external use.
Click to expand...
They already invested money in developing PDKs and IPs for 18A/-P. Maybe the decision is they will not invest more $$ in 18A or even 18A-P IP development and focus more of those $$ spent on 14A to accelerate that node. I really doubt they will abandon 18A for external customers. If a customer wants to use the 18A or 18A-P PDKs already developed, they will definitely do that imo unless it takes considerable internal effort for Intel to make it work. This is probably a shift in focus internally for Intel but is being blown out of proportion for clicks and likes by Reuters. They have a history of misreporting stuff about Intel.

kevin01 said:
I would believe its PDK to be mature and its foundry offering to be competitive when Intel GPUs are manufactured using its own node.
Click to expand...
Xe3 iGPU tile on some PTL SKU is on Intel 3. But it has no mature PDK.
 
Last edited:
siliconbruh999 said:
Anyone heard something regarding this or is it just another classic Returs hit piece 🤣🤣
Click to expand...

Exclusive usually = hit piece. Unnamed sources etc... :sleep:

Lip-Bu is out talking to customers so the foundry strategy may change.

The truth of the matter is that Intel 18A is a great process but it missed the market window for the big fabless customers. Rather than chase 3rd and 4rth tier customers Intel may focus on 14A and 1st tier customers which makes sense. It is a similar effort with much bigger results. Go Intel!
 
Daniel Nenni said:
Exclusive usually = hit piece. Unnamed sources etc... :sleep:

Lip-Bu is out talking to customers so the foundry strategy may change.

The truth of the matter is that Intel 18A is a great process but it missed the market window for the big fabless customers. Rather than chase 3rd and 4rth tier customers Intel may focus on 14A and 1st tier customers which makes sense. It is a similar effort with much bigger results. Go Intel!
Click to expand...
Exactly. 18A does not have customers and TSMC has many N2 customers. The 18A window is passing. So now the focus is 14A ("but the next technology will be great")
Side note: How could it miss the window when Pat said 18A would be the unquestioned leader?
This was all predicted years ago.

I will repost some blogs from last year to show what 2026 and 2027 will look like and the quotes you will hear from Intel on the finances surrounding IFS and 18A.
 
MKWVentures said:
18A does not have customers and TSMC has many N2 customers.
Click to expand...
1751469294853.png

www.intel.com

Semiconductor Manufacturing Process | Intel 18A, 3, and 16

See how Intel is enabling tomorrow's cutting-edge semiconductor manufacturing process technologies to deliver a systems foundry for the AI era.
www.intel.com www.intel.com
 
MKWVentures said:
Exactly. 18A does not have customers and TSMC has many N2 customers. The 18A window is passing. So now the focus is 14A ("but the next technology will be great")
Side note: How could it miss the window when Pat said 18A would be the unquestioned leader?
This was all predicted years ago.

I will repost some blogs from last year to show what 2026 and 2027 will look like and the quotes you will hear from Intel on the finances surrounding IFS and 18A.
Click to expand...
well Intel got 2 customers(AWS/Microsoft) ON 18a :) you can say the volume for those customer is low but saying no customers is kind of misleading
 
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