Intel Urged to Take 'Immediate Action' Amid Threats From Apple Silicon and AMD

[hot-gril]

Did the dinosaurs of old see it coming? And even if they did, would it really have changed anything? All things die eventually... that's what evolution is all about.

You think Apple and AMD are in a different boat? Their time will come. It always comes.

Dinosaurs can't bail out, though I usually compare this to a sinking ship.

Not saying Intel is in this stage (they're nowhere near), but a big tech corp always dies slowly. The founders bail first maybe, then the more savvy investors sell, then the more ambitious employees switch, leaving behind ones who are essentially retired but still receiving income. Funny enough the valuation stays afloat for a very long time in that state as they ride out their past investments, usually paying it all out in dividends since they're no longer growing. That's probably Cisco, HP, and IBM.

 

[Erehy Dobon]

What, They didn't see this till now?

Look at what's happening here with Intel and Boeing - in high tech manufacturing. There were the gems of the US now falling face down.

Actually, the original gems of US manufacturing were the automobile makers.

Fifty years ago Japan did what they often do. They visited, observed, took notes, went home and set about doing it the improved Japanese way. It only took them 25-30 years to finally get it right.

 

[hot-gril]

Boeing is a different kettle of fish. Their problem was one plane. Well, more precisely, it was their management culture that facilitated design decisions that produced that one plane. The solutions for each are very different. Intel might not be able to get back in a game that reqires years, if not a decade or more, of development. Boeing has no competition that doesn’t also have similar, if not worse management bureaucracy. They will be able to fix it. Their problems are longer term with companies like SpaceX, Blue Horizon, Tesla and others catching up and passing them with disruptive innovation that can compete with their core competencies.

Boeing is somewhat part of the US government with all the special treatment they get, so I only compare them to others like that.

 

[cppguy]

Sadly, companies will keep buying the cheapest desktop and laptop machines with unremarkable performance and excessive overheating, at least for basic office work. It's especially true for countries outside of North America / Western Europe. They're not going to jump on $1000 M1s. Ryzen 9 can take the high-end Windows market, but there are plenty of low-end computers out there. However, Intel is in big trouble, because if they lose a big chunk of the customers they will fall behind even further. Laptop manufacturers can completely switch over to AMD. Intel has zero presence in the mobile market, and could lose all portable devices / laptops, which leaves only the low-end corporate desktops. Developing fabs is very costly, they need to sell a lot of chips just to be able to keep up. Intel has one huge advantage, they could add hardware x86 emulation into their ARM design. But they have to solve their manufacturing and excessive heat issues. Consumers are no longer tolerating overheating for mundane tasks such as installing Windows updates, watching movies, or scrolling Google maps. And the corporate market can switch to AMD in a heartbeat, it's almost completely interchangeable. The professional market (video editing, CAD) is already leaving Intel for Ryzen 9 and Apple M1.

 

[newdeal]

Intel has two choices, either they get their 7nm process working asap, or they switch to a foundry that can. Well I guess the third choice is in 10 years they are gone which is seeming more likely with Samsung, Apple, and Nvidia being the chip makers of the future and outsourcing the fab to other companies. No I don't think AMD will be around long term either they have spent so much effort trying to beat Intel at their own game instead of changing the game.

 

[Erehy Dobon]

I'm not even sure if the latter is an option at this point. The newest nodes are pretty heavily booked.

 

[MrDerby01]

I can't even imagine the amount of back stabbing... blame shifting. Years ago I worked for US Steel.. You could get stabbed just walking to the water cooler.

Won't be buying the first gen M1.. Saving up for the M2..M3 =) Can't wait.

 

[MrDerby01]

I think that might be the point, if Microsoft gets serious about Windows on ARM then Intel dies for sure, slow and painful but still dies.

My comment to this is... If Apple would change their support model just a bit.. They would have more industry buy in.

 

[X--X]

Third Point encouraged Intel to consider separating its chip design and manufacturing divisions, and instead seek a joint venture in manufacturing.

Translation: Fire a big chunk of your workers, close down all your manufacturing sites in the U.S., and let a contractor do it in China.

 

[tbirdparis]

I wonder if some day in the future, the old expression "resting on your laurels" might fall out of use and be replaced with something using the word Intel instead..

 

[tdar]

Intel should take the advice that Michael Dell once gave Apple and just close up shop and return all the money they have to shareholders.

Mr. Dell should worry about his own company. Their day is coming too.

 

[obamtl]

The problem is Intel's foundries are barely at 10nm. Apple would need to invest billions, if not tens of billions, to get them to sub-10nm and Apple would be dependent on hoping Intel's fab engineers could do it.

Much better to spend a few scores of millions to help TSMC get their new processes into production by agreeing to be "first mover" and buying chips while TSMC are ramping up production and yields are low and then getting exclusive access to that process for a time.

You're right. Apple's acquisition is usually focused more on acquiring talent. The question is whether Apple considers Intel's fabrication engineers worthy of acquisition. Given the struggles with Intel, the only way this would be possible is if the primary cause of failure to get below 10nm is down to factors completely external to the talent in that team and their culture.

 

[Glideslope]

Why is NO ONE here looking at the BIG picture ?

TSMC is located where people ?

The ONLY way to prevent the U.S. from eventually going to war with China is to bring IC manufacturing back to the States !

One way to help that effort would be for the U.S. Govt to subsidize Intel's On-Shore manufacturing efforts !

It's just a matter of time before the U.S. is at war with China, if that doesn't happen.

U.S. companies will need to, at some point, distance themselves from Taiwan.

Also, would love to see TSMC set-up THREE different sites here in the States.

In this case, some redundancy is a good thing, even if it's NOT the most efficient solution.

Yup, I’m always amazed at how caught up people get with Apples Chips, yet forget how fragile their supply could easily become.

Until TSMC is manufacturing in the US on a large scale everyone should remember this.

Architecture is only one Component. Manufacturing is the other.

 

[obamtl]

Intel about to go the way of Blackberry 😅

My thoughts exactly. They're looking increasingly like Intel of 2012.

 

[gnasher729]

Intel isn’t going anywhere as long as windows machines keep using it.

The problem with that is that Windows machines can use AMD. Right now Intel is still the stronger brand, but that won’t last forever. And they are lucky that Apple wants to keep its M1 technology for itself.

 

[Zdigital2015]

Corollary: When Microsoft releases Windows ARM, Intel is toast.

IF Microsoft releases Windows on ARM, Intel might be burnt, maybe...probably not toast. Inertia is a horrible thing.

 

[gnasher729]

Sadly, companies will keep buying the cheapest desktop and laptop machines with unremarkable performance and excessive overheating, at least for basic office work. It's especially true for countries outside of North America / Western Europe. They're not going to jump on $1000 M1s. Ryzen 9 can take the high-end Windows market, but there are plenty of low-end computers out there. However, Intel is in big trouble, because if they lose a big chunk of the customers they will fall behind even further. Laptop manufacturers can completely switch over to AMD. Intel has zero presence in the mobile market, and could lose all portable devices / laptops, which leaves only the low-end corporate desktops. Developing fabs is very costly, they need to sell a lot of chips just to be able to keep up. Intel has one huge advantage, they could add hardware x86 emulation into their ARM design. But they have to solve their manufacturing and excessive heat issues. Consumers are no longer tolerating overheating for mundane tasks such as installing Windows updates, watching movies, or scrolling Google maps. And the corporate market can switch to AMD in a heartbeat, it's almost completely interchangeable. The professional market (video editing, CAD) is already leaving Intel for Ryzen 9 and Apple M1.

The A12 is cheaper than M1 and runs faster than 90% of all PCs being built.

 

[obamtl]

Windows might go ARM, AMD might smoke Intel some more.


But in the end Intel has so much inertia that it will keep on going for the rest of this decade.

Chances of them getting back to the top in that timeframe >90%.

Inertia exactly the reason they could die like Research in Motion (Blackberry) and Nokia. They're not pivoting fast enough to meet market needs. Microsoft's not going to sit around watching Apple Silicon trounce X86.

Intel might argue they have the enterprise market, but if you look at what Microsoft has done, prioritising their ARM efforts at servers, they're clearly watching Azure and cloud computing as the area where they want to target first (taking the fight to Amazon - who are also looking at ARM) in the highly profitable cloud computing space, before turning their attention to PCs where they might reckon they have a couple more years to move.

Intel is in trouble, and the strategy outlined sounds like it could be a winner. Kinda like how BlackBerry was too slow to double down on BBM and allowed Whatsapp room to take that market (and be acquired by Facebook). RIM could have pivoted BBM and become vastly more profitable today than the actual hardware ever could have been. By the time they spun off BBM, it was too late.

 

[obamtl]

Why is NO ONE here looking at the BIG picture ?

TSMC is located where people ?

The ONLY way to prevent the U.S. from eventually going to war with China is to bring IC manufacturing back to the States !

One way to help that effort would be for the U.S. Govt to subsidize Intel's On-Shore manufacturing efforts !

It's just a matter of time before the U.S. is at war with China, if that doesn't happen.

U.S. companies will need to, at some point, distance themselves from Taiwan.

Also, would love to see TSMC set-up THREE different sites here in the States.

In this case, some redundancy is a good thing, even if it's NOT the most efficient solution.

TSMC is a Taiwanese company, not the billion-person People's Republic of China. And TSMC is expanding their manufacturing beyond Taiwan.

 

[gnasher729]

with my new Mac M1 Air I now have to run a stress tool to warm it up in the morning because its soooo cold to the touch.. unlike my intel pro book which gets so freakily hot, it burns..

Moral of the story: Don’t try selling M1 Macs to Alaska, or worse, Greenland.

 

[oneMadRssn]

"Without immediate change at Intel," the letter cautioned, "we fear that America's access to leading-edge semiconductor supply will erode."

Third Point expressed concern that the custom silicon designed by these companies is sent to be manufactured by companies in East Asia.

I agree with most of what this note writes, except for the U.S. parts. Semiconductor fabrication in the US should certainly be bigger, I would love for it to be bigger, but I disagree with framing it as Intel being the only major US semiconductor fab. Intel is not the entire US semiconductor fab industry.

Samsung Austin Semiconductor is one of the largest semiconductor fabs in the world, and located in the US.
Global Foundries has a few former-AMD fabs in the US still operating at good capacity.
TSMC has plans to build fabs in the US, and already has some R&D presence in the US.

 

[MacBH928]

This is the end
Beautiful friend... the end.

Just the nature of capitalism and open competition. Consumer wins. "Intel, you are the weakest link!"

 

[cmaier]

Why is NO ONE here looking at the BIG picture ?

TSMC is located where people ?

The ONLY way to prevent the U.S. from eventually going to war with China is to bring IC manufacturing back to the States !

You know TSMC is in a democratic country that is friendly to the west, and is not China, right?

 

[obamtl]

The article says nothing about divesting its fabs; instead it says just the opposite: "Furthermore, opening up Intel's own manufacturing capability to make non-Intel processors could allow it to produce the custom silicon chips increasingly wanted by its major clients."

The point of the suggested strategy is for Intel to get away from the unitary design-to-manufacturing model, and to consider design and manufacturing to be entirely separate businesses. This would allow Intel's fabs to be more focused on its strengths. Intel-designed chips could be manufactured by partners, where the design better fits other fabrication facilities, while Intel fabs would be open for third-party designs that matched Intel fab strengths. IMO, this strategy makes perfect sense, as it meets the needs of the current market better.

You just need to look at Samsung, who have this strategy nailed down to a T in how their smartphone business buys components from other parts of Samsung who are set up to also service Apple and Samsung's direct competitors. Likewise the smartphone business can jettison parts from the Samsung group for competitors if there's something better out there to buy.

 

[jinnj]

lol @ the idea of TSMC spending only a few tens or twenty millions to get their process working. just completely hilarious. You can't even buy a single stepper for that.

I believe it was discussing that Apple's would invest that much to get first runs on the new fabs at TSMC. The cost for Apple would be in the millions and not the billions required to purchase Intel and upgraded them. TSMC investment will even be less than the cost of Intel upgrading.