I wouldn't discount that reason, as that seems like a very important reason to them.
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Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger Retires Amid Company's Decline
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I liked Pat Gelsinger. He was an engineer, focussed on process leadership and stopping the rot in the foundries. Whether he was the right CEO for Intel remains to be seen, I think Intel’s problems go beyond just poor process execution. The marketing of their chips is a mess, has been for years, and when they do “make” a good product like the Lunar Lake chips they can’t capitalise on it.
But really when you say you’re going to deliver on an 18A process in 2025, and a few months before people find out the yield is stuck at a measly 10% then that is going to have consequences, especially when that 18A process is supposed to be the great saviour of the company.
It calls into doubt the whole roadmap to technical leadership of the silicon industry, and I think that is why Gelsinger had to go.
But really when you say you’re going to deliver on an 18A process in 2025, and a few months before people find out the yield is stuck at a measly 10% then that is going to have consequences, especially when that 18A process is supposed to be the great saviour of the company.
It calls into doubt the whole roadmap to technical leadership of the silicon industry, and I think that is why Gelsinger had to go.
I agree with your first paragraph, but are you basing your 18A comment on this report:
Intel 18A Process Node Clocks an Abysmal 10% Yield: Report
In case you're wondering why Intel went with TSMC 3 nm to build the Compute tile of its "Arrow Lake" processor, and the SoC tile of "Lunar Lake," instead of Intel 3, or even Intel 20A, perhaps...
www.techpowerup.com
or this clarification:
Editorial - Intel 18A Yields Are Actually Okay, And The Math Checks Out
A few days ago, we published a report about Intel's 18A yields being at an abysmal 10%. This sparked quite a lot of discussion among the tech community, as well as responses from industry analysts and Intel's now ex-CEO Pat Gelsinger. Today, we are diving into known information about Intel's 18A...
www.techpowerup.com
The internet has all sorts of questionable info and rumours, but at least TechPowerUp did a decent follow up. Kudos to them.
I wouldn't be quite as worried about AI. Sure, LLMs will stick around, but let's just say I wouldn't recommend buying NVDA stock right now.
But they have to figure out how to leapfrog Apple on their laptop CPUs.
And they have to answer: do they want to keep pursuing their GPUs, which nobody seems to love, or cut their losses.
That seems like a big reason.
This is my personal opinion and thus obviously room to disagree but I think there will be a forced merger with another US-based firm or it will exist as a zombie company like in Japan, with the main customer being the US gov to use the chips in military applications. Unless they somehow make some revolutionary breakthrough with 18A (after abandoning 20A?).
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/intel-set-3-5bn-deal-095507364.html
If you google "intel military customers" you get results like these:
https://www.businesswire.com/news/h...es-Military-Aerospace-and-Government-Alliance
https://www.acldigital.com/newsroom...-foundry-accelerator-design-services-alliance
https://ir.quicklogic.com/press-rel...-joins-intel-foundry-accelerator-ip-and-usmag
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I agree with your first paragraph, but are you basing your 18A comment on this report:
Intel 18A Process Node Clocks an Abysmal 10% Yield: Report
In case you're wondering why Intel went with TSMC 3 nm to build the Compute tile of its "Arrow Lake" processor, and the SoC tile of "Lunar Lake," instead of Intel 3, or even Intel 20A, perhaps...www.techpowerup.com
or this clarification:
Editorial - Intel 18A Yields Are Actually Okay, And The Math Checks Out
A few days ago, we published a report about Intel's 18A yields being at an abysmal 10%. This sparked quite a lot of discussion among the tech community, as well as responses from industry analysts and Intel's now ex-CEO Pat Gelsinger. Today, we are diving into known information about Intel's 18A...www.techpowerup.com
The internet has all sorts of questionable info and rumours, but at least TechPowerUp did a decent follow up. Kudos to them.
I was only aware of the first article, not of the follow up. Thanks! Perhaps they will be in a good place to launch 18A after all in 2025.
Yeah, I’m hoping they will succeed despite me thinking they should have kept Gelsinger because I agree with him that their main competitive advantage was originally their foundry expertise, and there wouldn’t be a lot to distinguish them anymore with that gone. The article I posted earlier that blamed the board does have me more worried, though, as it sounds like they are looking for short term gains and to reduce capital spending, which doesn’t sound future fab friendly.
Funny how putting short-term profits over quality eventually catches up to these greedy corporations with customers loss of trust and long-term losses. They'll join a long line of under-performing or extinct companies who thought they would be the exception.
Intel shareholders look to yank back ex-CEO, CFO compensation
CFO and co-interim CEO David Zinsner, along with the company’s former CEO, misled shareholders about the financial performance of Intel’s foundry unit, shareholders allege.