this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2024
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[–] riodoro1 28 points 1 month ago

Didn’t they like cancel a bunch of factory projects recently?

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Who possibly saw that if you kill your manufacturing and buy from a company with monopoly power, they could write there own profits.

Sometimes big companies are really dumb.

[–] Buffalox 21 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

While in reality TSMC gave Intel a 40% discount, a discount that was only discontinued, because Gelsinger trash talked TSMC!
So you are right they were dumb, but you are completely wrong about the why and how.

But of course based only on this article, it's impossible to get that part right.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Or TSMC was always planning to raise the price and Gelsinger just gave them an excuse to do so sooner while not losing face or worrying other clients too much.

[–] Buffalox 5 points 1 month ago

Maybe, personally I think they sold to Intel cheap to discourage them from investing heavily in production. Which of course they did anyway.
But I wouldn't be surprised if the price they had with TSMC with the steep discount, would be cheaper than Intels own production.

[–] firadin 20 points 1 month ago (1 children)

This is a pretty dumb take, honestly. Intel for basically forever operated using their own fab exclusively. After failures to maintain good yield rates at their 10nm node, they had the option of continuing to delay new product lines and be eaten by the competition in AMD, or give in to TSMC temporarily while they worked on fixing their fab in parallel. In fact, they were criticized greatly for not switching to TSMC much earlier.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 month ago (4 children)

The key word is temporarily. How long ago was this?

Calling people dumb then throwing a weak argument doesn't make it stronger.

They're on wafer thin margins with vendor lock in. The strategy was not successful.

[–] KingRandomGuy 3 points 1 month ago

I think it's been about a year? IIRC Intel only started using TSMC for their processors with Meteor Lake, which was released in late 2023.

I believe their discrete GPUs have been manufactured at TSMC for longer than that, though.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

It was a bad take. Intel has not been using TSMC long.

That said, it's pretty broadly agreed that Intel needs to toss its manufacturing arm into a subsidiary, and then possibly make that subsidiary completely independent. That's what AMD did with Global Foundries, and it worked very well for them. This process seems to have already started at Intel.

[–] firadin 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

How long do you think fabs take to build and upgrade? Intel was working on fixing 10nm for years, this isn't a software situation where turnaround times are measured in days or weeks. Going from tapeout to silicon for a single line is a 6 month process after the technology process is solidified, forget if you're doing it while trying to figure out yield problems.

[–] Entropywins 1 points 1 month ago

Three years in and at least one more to go where I work for our fab upgrade...could probably pull off new build in 4 or less not having to deal with production/cleanroom and depending on bldg/campus size.

[–] Entropywins 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Ha wafer thin margins funny!!! Side note you ever watched them pull/crystallize silicone ingots it's pretty frickin cool to see.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago

Executives at that time got paid for these decisions.

Nothing dumb about being paid. Taxpayers bail these parasites out at every turn now that's idiotic but here we are 🤡

[–] solrize 14 points 1 month ago
[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Good days are coming for Intel.

Meanwhile stock prices going down, down, down.

[–] Alphane_Moon 6 points 1 month ago

Perhaps that's an opportunity, if you don't think it's a value trap that is.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Actually not, with the job cuts the other day, share price rose.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Failing company eroding its work force get a temporary bump in stock price.

Bullish 🤡

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

They have a big market share and can improve margins with big state subsidies and firing people. Bug corps always fine. Workers are the ones that suffer.

Don't crack out the violins for Intel just yet. The reporting is hyperbole, and if you can't digest the facts through the sensationalism. A media break might be a good plan.

[–] hark 11 points 1 month ago

Break free from the solution they resorted to in the pursuit of profits? Too bad that backfired, but it's okay since Intel can keep making subpar products as long as the government has their back.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

will they fuck that up too?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Not as long ad american taxpayer keeps giving them billions;)