Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger on achieving chip independence: Goal is 50/50 by the end of the decade
- Thread starter hist78
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hist78
Well-known member
There are several "strange" moments during the interview. The first one is that Pat Gelsinger pointed out Intel and himself created the WiFi (or WiFi capable PC).
Second one is that he repeated his views about supply chain stability and diversity. When he used TSMC and Taiwan as a proof of his view, he forgot Intel itself has four manufacturing and R&D sites in Israel with 12000 employees. Intel is also investing $25 billion to expand its manufacturing capabilities in Israel. As we all know, Israel is unfortunately in a war zone right now. Unless Pat Gelsinger doesn't call the active conflicts there as a war.
I'm afraid Pat Gelsinger's ego has stopped smart people around him to remind him that he needs to refrain himself from commenting certain topics. It's just like airlines' executives never bring up the subject about their competitors' safety records.
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If anything isn't that proof of the correctness of this view that supply chains shouldn't only be concentrated in one place? Also I think it is worth considering the implications of a war in TW relative to the current war in Israel. After the initial strike, Israel proper has been effectively untouched. Meanwhile the whole point of silicon shield in TW is the ensured destruction of all of TSMC and UMC's R&D, and the overwhelming majority of their manufacturing should TW be invaded by the militarily stronger PRC. Severity is also different too. If intel israel was destroyed where that would only be 1/7th of their wafer fab sites.
Of course if we want to argue that this point is overstated by Pat and that we will have worse issues than TSMC's destruction if there was a war in TW, I think you can make a strong argument for that. But I mean what is the CEO of a new entrant in the foundry industry supposed to say if that is one of the differentiators for IFS and there is a strong stigma that only TW can magically do semiconductors now? Not much different to how TSMC plays up the trust of being pure play and how you can never fully trust an IDM foundry. Like what Pat says about supply chains it isn't technically wrong, but the magnitude of how much customers should fear these different eventualities is likely overexaggerated to the respective company's benefits.
That's definitely feels like a pipe dream even if we don't count memory (which we should). In 2020 techinsights estimated that intel 10+14nm was like 80% of TSMC N7+N5. If we assumme intel's internal wafer demand stays similar, techinsights numbers are right, and that leading edge is N thru N+1. Then I guess maybe you can get there if TSMC and or Samsung invest in more leading edge fabs in the west. But there are also factors that greatly screw with numbers. Back then intel claims like 20% of wafers were from 3rd parties. Will this be higher or lower in 2030? Another confounding factor is disaggregation. Disag will reduce the demand for N, but will that be replaced by higher N+1 demand? Or will alot of chips stay on N7 or N5? What about how poor uHD SRAM scaling impacts wafer demands? Will disag or the SRAM scaling impact intel's (the likely main source of leading edge western foundry capacity going forward) wafer demands more or less than the industry avg?
Either way even if the math is maybe plausible for logic; Micron isn't planning on making the majority of their DRAM+NAND in the west and ontop of that they are also the smallest DRAM player and number 3 for NAND. So if we count logic+memory no way Jose is 50/50 plausible.
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No, I really think Gelsinger was talking about WiFi. The first laptop with WiFi was an Apple iBook, but did that product ship in significant volume compared to PCs? Of course not. Gelsinger is in a way correct, until Intel put WiFi in client chipsets WiFi wasn't a huge success. Did he have a role in inventing WiFi? I doubt it, because WiFi was essentially invented by AT&T and NCR. But WiFi chip development was probably in his group, and there are managers who believe they're key contributors to realizing a technology just because they were developed in their organizations and they were ultimate decision-makers on a variety of funding and management issues. The same with USB. USB was invented by Intel, the lead architect was Ajay Bhatt, who went on to lead the original PCIe definition in Intel, and USB was a project in Gelsinger's organization. I have no idea what if any technical contributions Gelsinger might have made, but he was a senior manager at the time. (Intel even made some silly commercials about Bhatt ages ago, with an actor portraying him.)
Sometimes when I watch videos of Gelsinger I get the impression he's excited about being excited.
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That is an awesome commercial. Love it!
As far as Intel's commitment to Israel and the Western culture, it is a strong statement. The definition of a leader is somebody who take the lead. Gunslinger made a gutsy move with that $25B investment. A strong technical community beyond the borders of Israel appreciates that bold move.
I see nothing wrong with that interview. He is saying what he should be saying.
As far as Intel's commitment to Israel and the Western culture, it is a strong statement. The definition of a leader is somebody who take the lead. Gunslinger made a gutsy move with that $25B investment. A strong technical community beyond the borders of Israel appreciates that bold move.
I see nothing wrong with that interview. He is saying what he should be saying.
hist78
Well-known member
Unless Pat Gelsinger counted Israel as an European country and categorized Japan, South Korea, or Taiwan into North America?
hist78
Well-known member
To certain degree it's hard to compare between Taiwan and Israel that which country is safer. But we have to face the reality that while Pat Gelsinger keeps pointing out a possibility of a "FUTURE" military conflict between Taiwan and mainland China, he wants people completely to forget about the endless wars and conflicts inside and around Israel.
The current ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas has already consumed 21,000+ precious lives! And it's just one of many deadly conflicts Israel has gone through in the past 60 ~ 70 years. As far as I know, there isn't any lost of life caused by a conflict between Taiwan and mainland China in the past 60 years. Actually I don't think there is an incident qualified as so-called "conflict" between Taiwan and mainland China in the past 60 years.
So despite of the brutal and tragical records, Pat Gelsinger wants us to believe Israel is safer than Taiwan and Intel's $25 billion new investment in Israel is safe and sound?
If I am a board member of Intel, I would like to tell Pat Gelsinger that both Taiwan and Israel seem to be unsafe. I'd ask: Can Intel build more fabs in Europe and USA and move those smart Israel engineers and technicians to those safer countries?
If I am a board member of Intel, I'd ask Pat Gelsinger that if the partner relationship between Intel and TSMC is critical to the Intel's recovery? If the answer is a "yes", I will ask Pat to stop criticizing TSMC personally. Leave the TSMC bashing jobs to those outside cheap consultants. I'll tell Pat Gelsinger that "Don't burn the bridge before you can cross the river!"
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He was probably talking about Intel Centrino platform for the laptops.
It does not matter how dangerous the situation in Israel is. Israel's share of silicon manufacturing is a rounding error. Taiwan on the other hand... And let's not forget that Taiwan is part of China (which is the official US policy).
Exactly.
Don't get my wrong what is happening in Israel makes me very sad.The violence from both sides makes me sick. My point was that Hamas is completely incapable of wrecking the destruction that the IDF has shown they can wreck on Gaza. In a ROC vs PRC war the balance of power is less lopsided but in the PRCs favor. The war in Gaza has not damaged any intel fabs. A war with the PRC would result in the ROCA would deliberately destroy them as an act of resistance. Back on the topic of resilience; we never know when and where war could erupt. Nobody thought Ukraine would flare up like it did. Nobody was expecting conflict between Israel and Hamas to get to 1948 levels (and prob even worse than that). Who is to say when and where war will strike. Personally I don't think the PRC or DPRK will ever come a knocking on their free neighbors. But I would have said the same about Putin and the current conflict in Israel... Is not not a good goal to at least be a little dispersed in case any of these eventualities comes to pass? I think so.
As for Pat, as I said he is the CEO of intel. Of course he will player up this angle because it is a selling point. One that the free market wants as evidenced by TSMC and Samsung building outside of the ROC/PRC/ROK to meet customer requests for more supply chain resiliency. Because I can guarantee you that TSMC would not be building in the US, Japan, or Germany if its customers weren't begging for it.
That bridge is almost certainly already burned due to IFS existing. However TSMC will always be at intel's beck and call. For one customer service excellence is in their DNA. Two they will fiercely compete with IFS to get the gargantuan business from intel BUs. But any special treatment or insider access they might of had during the pre Pat era of going fab-lite surly must be gone now that intel is a direct competitor. The fact they were not only acknowledging the comp at last earnings at all and making specific claims is not in TSMCs recent MO and tells you me that they are taking IFS seriously in a way that they haven't been taking with Samsung for a long time.
delong.height
Active member
I do think the additional investment in Israel is worthwhile since Intel Israel has been one of the major R&D hubs, and they had contributed significantly to Intel's past. Like Raptor Lake which delivered a significant performance uplift when the architecture and process node stays the same. Also US has plenty of reason to step in middle east. But it is extremely difficult to step in the conflict between Taiwan and China. Let's not forgot that North Korea just declared that their peace treaties have officially breached, and they are ready to attach SK at any time. The east is now a potential battleground.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/...ue-reconciliation-with-south-kim-jong-un-says
Taiwan vs. Xi is a very different situation compared to Israel vs. the combined Arab world.
Intel investment in Israel is also ridiculous compared to the worlds dependence on Taiwan semiconductors.
Pat’s view and narrative is a bit extreme but correct in reality. If the Arabs were to destroy Israel tech industry the world’s economy and Intel would suffer but a blip to it. If Xi decides to invade or blockade Taiwan the world would have to give up and let them have TSMC and the Island or watch the worlds high tech go poof. The really crazy wild card what would Biden or Trump do when China decide Taiwan is their’s.
TSMCs fab in Az is nothing but a symbolic little fab! It is really a N—1 fab and the capacity is so small and the core enabling for new tape outs all reside Taiwan. Even during a war even full transfer and scale up of the Fab in Az can’t save the worlds high tech.
The time it take to replace all the IP and fab scale by TSMC Az to scale would be far slower than GF and Intel to ramp up to scale to provide the world. Intel will survive and thrive going forward.
Intel investment in Israel is also ridiculous compared to the worlds dependence on Taiwan semiconductors.
Pat’s view and narrative is a bit extreme but correct in reality. If the Arabs were to destroy Israel tech industry the world’s economy and Intel would suffer but a blip to it. If Xi decides to invade or blockade Taiwan the world would have to give up and let them have TSMC and the Island or watch the worlds high tech go poof. The really crazy wild card what would Biden or Trump do when China decide Taiwan is their’s.
TSMCs fab in Az is nothing but a symbolic little fab! It is really a N—1 fab and the capacity is so small and the core enabling for new tape outs all reside Taiwan. Even during a war even full transfer and scale up of the Fab in Az can’t save the worlds high tech.
The time it take to replace all the IP and fab scale by TSMC Az to scale would be far slower than GF and Intel to ramp up to scale to provide the world. Intel will survive and thrive going forward.
Agreed.
I think the really troublesome scenario is Taiwan voluntarily unifying with China. I agree with all of my friends that voluntary unification seems unlikely at this juncture, but the US and its allies would have to confront a truly no-win scenario. I can't think of a workable strategy for the US, and either can anyone else I've discussed it with. Chinese strategies for this scenario are easy to postulate. Turn up the military heat to just under a boil for long enough to make Taiwan weary, and then make them a rich and tempting offer to unify peacefully.
Agreed. Doesn't it work out to about 4% of TSMC's total capacity?
Agreed.
This is a very complicated question. I think the time frames for any scenario to replace TSMC are so long it makes the discussion simply a bunch of alternative high tech doomsday scenarios.
Intel's success probabilities are very complicated and difficult to predict. If IFS is a success, but its own CPUs and other chips lose significantly more market share, can Intel succeed? I'm not confident about that.
Wow, they hammered Pat on China. I like his 50/50 sound byte. That one is going to have a shelf life. I still say North Korea is the big risk but now that relations between North Korea/Russia/China are developing maybe there will be continued peace in that region.
If we really want to keep Taiwan safe we need to open back up technology trade with China, my opinion. Blocking leading edge AI enabling wafers made in Taiwan is going to push China to act on Taiwan.
If we really want to keep Taiwan safe we need to open back up technology trade with China, my opinion. Blocking leading edge AI enabling wafers made in Taiwan is going to push China to act on Taiwan.
Silicon technology now is the basis for advancement of the industrial base and a countries competitiveness in the global stage. Every thing that makes the economy go: smartphones, PC, wearables, AI, cloud, cars on and on. It is the combined value of oil and steel of the last century.
This tech embargo and holding of all leading edge technology and enablement is a problematic strategy for the China by the West. It essentially is denying or attempting to denying the Chinese of everything to make their economy and society advance and be competitive. Push as hard as the West does gives China and Xi what choice and next step? Actually think the ball is really in Xi’s court more than the West for another few years, I know what I’d do in Xi’s position after the inauguration in 2025
I believe any chance of Taiwan agreeing to unify with China sailed out after the 2019-2020 Hong Kong protests. The methods and ways which the CCP took control and ended much of the freedoms and rights of the people in Hong Kong horrified Taiwan (and much of the Western World).
Xi Jingping did more for the Taiwan independence movement than any Taiwanese politician could ever hope to do. There isn't a chance that Taiwan will ever voluntary agree (without coercion) to unification under Xi's China.
I really hope you're correct, but anytime I see a scenario where one side gets a huge advantage over the other side I look beyond the current assumptions. The US seems to have no viable response other than capitulation.