News Former Intel directors believe Intel must split in two to survive

[Admin]

Former Intel directors called the government to use its $20 billion CHIPS funding to force the company to split into two.

Former Intel directors believe Intel must split in two to survive : Read more

 

[waltc3]

FABs are hugely expensive endeavors. nVidia and Apple, not to mention AMD, are fabless. All are booming. Intel doesn't FAB for them, AFAIK, for obvious reasons. The biggest upside to US TSMC is that even if China decides to try and nationalize Taiwan, TSMC could survive and prosper in the US. Bringing manufacturing industries back to the US was always a no-brainer, and props to the former president's administration for making it happen and initiating the process.

 

[bit_user]

Bringing manufacturing industries back to the US was always a no-brainer, and props to the former president's administration for making it happen and initiating the process.

TSMC has fabs around the world, including China, Japan, and South Korea. Their first US fab was in Washington State, dating back to 1996. They're also building more in Japan and Europe. Samsung also had a fab in the US, dating all the way back to 1996.

Looking at US-based manufacturers: Intel, Micron, and Global Foundries all have fabs around the world. I'd say there's always been a lot of geographical diversity in the industry, but I think the CHIPS legislation was a good move to focus new investments in the US.

 

[Notton]

IMO, Intel and Samsung Foundries don't sell well, not because of competition issues, but because they sell a lame product.
For Intel they can't seem to do a power efficient design. You don't want your ASIC, IoT, ARM chip running hot and power hungry, that's a tough sell.
For Samsung, it's yield rate, clock speed, and power efficiency. It's so bad only a handful of ASICs for mining even bother with ordering.

 

[thestryker]

For Intel they can't seem to do a power efficient design. You don't want your ASIC, IoT, ARM chip running hot and power hungry, that's a tough sell.

Intel's only DUV node that utilizes industry standard tools is Intel 16. This means relying on Intel to do the process design work for the rest which is a non-starter for pretty much anyone doing volume fabrication.

Intel 4/3 and 20A (canceled)/18A also use industry standard tools, but Intel 4 and 20A aren't full nodes so they'd be of limited use in the first place. 18A isn't going to be available for usage until some time in 2026 and is the first node Intel has been pushing for external customers. Intel 3 should also be available, but I'm not sure what their volume availability looks like here though it should improve over time.