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Intel’s Troubles Complicate U.S. Chip Independence (spectrum.ieee.org)

submitted 3 months ago by flango to c/technology@lemmy.world

46 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Will more funding be needed to keep Intel competitive?

On 1 August 2024, Intel announced financial results for the second quarter of 2024. They weren’t pretty; the company’s stock dropped more than 25 percent as it announced an aggressive plan to cut costs, including layoffs that will impact 15 percent of its entire workforce.

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[–] Varyk@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 months ago (2 children)

welp, good riddance to bad rubbish.

did they get antitrusted?

[–] TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

did they get antitrusted?

No, AMD just had an absolutely staggering recovery.

Before AMD recovered, high-performance CPU manufacturers that fell behind had a 100% track record of fading into complete obscurity or going bankrupt.

AMD sold everything they had, including their fabs, they put their graphics division into what was effectively life support by only making a very cheap to manufacture Polaris chip (RX 480/580 cards and their derivatives) and a (unsuccessful) vega chip for several years, they pleaded with Microsoft and Sony to be used in their consoles for only the most pathetic margins that Intel and Nvidia would scoff at, and they got to work on Zen, putting everything into it.

If Zen failed, AMD would've went bankrupt, without question. Everyone expected bankruptcy from AMD. Their stock price went to under $2. Certainly nobody expected Zen to be as good as it was. They went from multiple generations behind Intel, to ahead in practically everything but gaming (which would take a couple more years) overnight.

Then, a moment of excellent luck for AMD, and poor luck for Intel, Spectre and Meltdown (two devastating vulnerabilities for Intel CPUs), accelerated the enterprise sector's switch to AMD.

[–] Varyk@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 months ago

thanks for the write-up.

i knew something had happened there but only read half headlines.

Thats an amazing story and gokd to know, thanks for clarifying and condensing it for me.

have a good one!

[–] GiddyGap@lemm.ee 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

good riddance to bad rubbish.

Well, that's the thing. They are kind of "too big to fail" and Intel is too important for the US to let it fail or even get behind the curve.

There's probably more government money headed their way. Just like there is more foreign government money headed to their competitors in other countries. It might become more of a subsidy battle between governments than a money-making competition between companies.

[–] Varyk@sh.itjust.works 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

the curve is firmly set by Taiwan, Intel is playing catch up at best.

Intel is just the right size to fail.

[–] GiddyGap@lemm.ee 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I don't think that's necessarily true.

Much of Intel’s foundry future is bet on Intel 18A, the company’s next leading-edge semiconductor production process. This “1.8-nanometer” production process will combine multiple Intel innovations including 3D hybrid bonding, nanosheet transistors, and back-side power delivery. Demler says that, if all goes to plan, Intel’s 18A should compete directly with, or even exceed, TSMC’s upcoming 2N process technology.

[–] Varyk@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

"bet", "next", "will", "if", "plan", "should".

that's a lot of faith to place in the unproven optimistically hypothetical next steps of a company way behind the firmly established innovation, dominance and reliability of TSMC semi fab.

[–] GiddyGap@lemm.ee 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Sure, but it's also hard to bid against a company that we all know the US government is not going to let fail.

[–] Varyk@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

no bidding, it's history.

Intel has been that big for decades and has been left in the dust by TSMC for decades.

the US has repeatedly invested in "too big to fail" companies and has been rewarded with recessions, housing crises, national credit demotion, crippling healthcare costs, and rampant inflation.

if it's too big to fail, it's too big to exist.