Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is half- to full- snark: When they outsource to TSMC. At some point Intel will get their act together and only be one step behind rather than... christ, are they three steps behind? They just have way too much money. But it does look like with the management purges, re-hires of old guard, and other changes it'll be a while before they right ship. There's probably pride to overcome, since a lot of process choices…
> At some point Intel will get their act together and only be one step behind rather than... christ, are they three steps behind? They're not really three steps behind. At some point, node measurements became more useless as Intel and TSMC differ on what part of the thing they're measuring. Intel's 14 nm is roughly the same as TSMCs 10, and i10 ~= t7, i7 ~= t5. TSMC is shipping their 5nm chips, and intel is halfway s…
With the code of processes and half-nodes / node+ tiers which easily cost as much as full node shrinks before, well, financially it may be three steps.
Plus the fact you don't chase what's in the marketplace if you're behind, you have to chase where the ball is rolling to.