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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
If you can offer a 40% discount and still make profit, your prices are probably 3 times the cost.
If you cannot go to another supplier, you have vendor lock in.
I’m an AMD guy, so I got no skin in the game defending Intel, but if you’re shilling this much for TSMC, you aren’t really bringing an unbiased opinion.
If you can offer a 40% discount and still make profit
Maybe they didn’t? Or at least maybe not much.
if you’re shilling this much for TSMC
What? How am I shilling for TSMC? And I’m 100% an AMD guy myself, I freaking stuck to AMD during the whole Buldozer shitty period, because I didn’t want an Intel monopoly. And I bought AMD stock when they revealed Ryzen.
A business easily offers a 40% discount. You didn’t critically assess that, ask how, and give off vibes it was a charitable and Intel was ungrateful. TMSC while an interesting business is still a big corp with profitability at heart.
Even if Intel aren’t the good guys, you cannot assume TMSC is. I like AMD, but I’m under no illusion they could throw consumers under the bus tomorrow for self interest. Right now, it’s king for Linux hardware though.
In public, TSMCdownplayed, opens new tab the comments, with its founder calling Gelsinger“a bit rude.” Privately, TSMC said it would no longer honor the discount, the sources said: about 40% off the $23,000, 3-nanometer wafers on which TSMC would print chips for Intel. Intel had to pay full price, shrinking its profit margin on the deal.
WTF! I did no such thing, that’s 100% on you to put that into it. I think they did it to discourage Intel from investing too heavily in their own production which would compete with TSMC.
Even if Intel aren’t the good guys
Again WTF? Where did any of that come from? They are businesses, their purpose is to make money!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Ha wafer thin margins funny!!! Side note you ever watched them pull/crystallize silicone ingots it’s pretty frickin cool to see.
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.
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.
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.
If you can offer a 40% discount and still make profit, your prices are probably 3 times the cost.
If you cannot go to another supplier, you have vendor lock in.
I’m an AMD guy, so I got no skin in the game defending Intel, but if you’re shilling this much for TSMC, you aren’t really bringing an unbiased opinion.
Maybe they didn’t? Or at least maybe not much.
What? How am I shilling for TSMC? And I’m 100% an AMD guy myself, I freaking stuck to AMD during the whole Buldozer shitty period, because I didn’t want an Intel monopoly. And I bought AMD stock when they revealed Ryzen.
So I do NOT encourage a TSMC monopoly either.
A business easily offers a 40% discount. You didn’t critically assess that, ask how, and give off vibes it was a charitable and Intel was ungrateful. TMSC while an interesting business is still a big corp with profitability at heart.
Even if Intel aren’t the good guys, you cannot assume TMSC is. I like AMD, but I’m under no illusion they could throw consumers under the bus tomorrow for self interest. Right now, it’s king for Linux hardware though.
https://archive.fo/VnQUu
WTF! I did no such thing, that’s 100% on you to put that into it. I think they did it to discourage Intel from investing too heavily in their own production which would compete with TSMC.
Again WTF? Where did any of that come from? They are businesses, their purpose is to make money!
You are being delusional.
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 🤡