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Intel exits memory business, sale to Hynix for $9B

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41–50 of 188 posts

Re: Intel exits memory business, sale to Hynix for $9B

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Intel is pretty much dead as is US tech innovation on this scale" The US still has Apple, Nvidia, Tesla, etc. All doing world-leading stuff. I would say US tech is far from dead.

Apple does research, design and software but all the manufacturing and assembly is done in China by Chinese companies. Mostly Samsung and Foxconn. Nvidia is the same but the chips are fabbed by TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor).

Samsung is Korean.

Re: Intel exits memory business, sale to Hynix for $9B

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Intel is pretty much dead as is US tech innovation on this scale" The US still has Apple, Nvidia, Tesla, etc. All doing world-leading stuff. I would say US tech is far from dead.

Apple does research, design and software but all the manufacturing and assembly is done in China by Chinese companies. Mostly Samsung and Foxconn. Nvidia is the same but the chips are fabbed by TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor).

Very few iPhone components are actually manufactured in China even now, it's just where all the parts are assembled, but the value contribution of assembly is only a few dollars per device[0]. Back in the day as much as about 40% of the components by value were manufactured in the USA, including the early Samsung CPUs made in a fab in Texas, and Gorilla Glass made by Corning in New York state. That was actually the case at the height of the furore about iPhones being made in China around 2010-2012, although few commentators bothered finding that out.

Nowadays the countries of origin are more diverse, and the proportion made in the USA has fallen. The biggest single change though was moving from US made Samsung CPUs to TSMC chips from Taiwan.

I believe some of the more sophisticated assembly and QA test equipment is US made, or at least used to be but can't find a reference for that online.

[0]https://www.lifewire.com/where-is-the-iphone-made-1999503

Re: Intel exits memory business, sale to Hynix for $9B

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Intel is pretty much dead as is US tech innovation on this scale" The US still has Apple, Nvidia, Tesla, etc. All doing world-leading stuff. I would say US tech is far from dead.

Apple does research, design and software but all the manufacturing and assembly is done in China by Chinese companies. Mostly Samsung and Foxconn. Nvidia is the same but the chips are fabbed by TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor).

Ahh yes, Foxconn and Samsung, two famous Chinese companies...

Re: Intel exits memory business, sale to Hynix for $9B

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Intel is pretty much dead as is US tech innovation on this scale" The US still has Apple, Nvidia, Tesla, etc. All doing world-leading stuff. I would say US tech is far from dead.

Apple does research, design and software but all the manufacturing and assembly is done in China by Chinese companies. Mostly Samsung and Foxconn. Nvidia is the same but the chips are fabbed by TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor).

Someone did remind us that TSMC relies on dutch machines for wafer productions. It's not china-skills-black-hole as one could think (I used to)

Re: Intel exits memory business, sale to Hynix for $9B

#46
post #7
post #5

Intel's NAND flash was overshadowed by their Optane (not included in the sale) and lagging behind Hynix and Samsung, so I guess this isn't such a bad move. The cynical take is that the CFO running Intel is attempting a bunch of standard corporate restructuring strategies to delay the effects of their slowing technical innovation. It is definitely concerning from a US technical superiority standpoint to consider that…

The real shitshow starts when the CFO becomes the CEO (as is usually the case), so Intel is pretty much dead as is US tech innovation on this scale (until VCs do what China does and start pouring money into hard stuff, not just fluffy software).

Same happens to Boeing too.

Re: Intel exits memory business, sale to Hynix for $9B

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Intel is pretty much dead as is US tech innovation on this scale" The US still has Apple, Nvidia, Tesla, etc. All doing world-leading stuff. I would say US tech is far from dead.

Apple does research, design and software but all the manufacturing and assembly is done in China by Chinese companies. Mostly Samsung and Foxconn. Nvidia is the same but the chips are fabbed by TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor).

Foxconn is taiwanese, Samsung south korean. Some Nvidia chips are also made by Samsung.

Apart from these inaccuracies however I'd mostly agree that us-american manufacturing is not in a great position, to put it mildly. That's not neccessarily where the real value lies, however: That's usually exactly in the designs, where the USA are strong.

Re: Intel exits memory business, sale to Hynix for $9B

#49

I guess it harkens back to their first few years, when they decided to sell off their DRAM business? Although, not so clear now whether it means they're on another course to greatness...

Yes, I was thinking of the same precedent. IBM got out of memory at about the same time, I believe, and for the same reason: Too low margins to make continuing to fight against the tough competition worthwhile.

>Although, not so clear now whether it means they're on another course to greatness...

This is the $64,000 question. Intel got out of the memory business when it was clear by 1985 that CPUs were its future. I didn't write x86 because Intel itself wasn't convinced of this; see iAPX 432, i860, Itanium, and StrongARM/Xscale. All failed to give Intel the backup/alternative to x86 that it has repeatedly sought.

It is not an exaggeration to say that Intel has failed, or at least failed to distinguish itself, in every single market it has entered since IBM chose the 8088 forty years ago. Besides the above alternative instructional sets/architectures and flash memory, antivirus (still perhaps the most mystifying move in Intel history), servers/motherboards, and GPUs come to mind. The most successful non-x86 business for Intel is ... Ethernet cards? Meanwhile, it's embarrassed itself with discrete GPUs at least three separate times. A few years ago buying Nvidia would have been a savvy move; now it can no longer do so, and it's not impossible to imagine Nvidia buying Intel in the future.

Even within the one market Intel does dominate, what saved the company 15 years ago amidst Itanic and Pentium 4 was 1) AMD Thunderbird being just as inefficient as Pentium 4 and, more importantly, 2) an Intel Israel skunk works project to improve on the Pentium 3. There is no such out-of-the-blue miracle this time.

Re: Intel exits memory business, sale to Hynix for $9B

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple does research, design and software but all the manufacturing and assembly is done in China by Chinese companies. Mostly Samsung and Foxconn. Nvidia is the same but the chips are fabbed by TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor).

Someone did remind us that TSMC relies on dutch machines for wafer productions. It's not china-skills-black-hole as one could think (I used to)

If you trust the EU to prevent ASML end up in chinese hands, then you're trusting too much.
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