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Intel is dying and we can’t save it

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Re: Intel is dying and we can’t save it

#191

Post by LunaSea »

danijelb wrote: post #190
tw04 wrote: post #84

Let's all just come to a common agreement: there's no planet on which the US military allows Intel to die. Period. End of story. Having a US based company with fabrication facilities on US soil is vital to national security and will be for the entirety of my lifetime and likely my grandchildren's lifetime (if I ever have any). For all the bluster of the investors wanting to chop Intel up: they will find a swift and f…

This is very US-centric view. Most countries in the world don't have chip fabrication facilities in their country and they do just fine. Sure, US is currently a superpower whose influence is felt across the world so having chip manufacturing locally is very important, but in a scenario where US would lose some influence that would no longer be an issue, same as it is not an issue for Canada, Germany or Russia.

> Most countries in the world don't have chip fabrication facilities in their country and they do just fine.

I don't think that Huawei is doing is doing just fine.

You have to think about scenarios where countries are opposed to the US for one reason or another.

The Patriot Act being renewed for 6 months and thus putting Cuba in the embargoed countries even more than they already were should be a good second example.

Re: Intel is dying and we can’t save it

#192

Post by newen »

cogman10 wrote: post #189
tw04 wrote: post #84

Let's all just come to a common agreement: there's no planet on which the US military allows Intel to die. Period. End of story. Having a US based company with fabrication facilities on US soil is vital to national security and will be for the entirety of my lifetime and likely my grandchildren's lifetime (if I ever have any). For all the bluster of the investors wanting to chop Intel up: they will find a swift and f…

There are already fabrication facilities in the US and I highly doubt that Intel's fabs would ever be decommissioned. They are far too valuable even if intel doesn't own them anymore. Now, the US may lag behind top of the line fabrication tech (It already does). But it will never lose it's ability to fabricate chips. For military applications, unless they start getting really into artificial intelligence (maybe they…

Multiple branches of US military are pouring tons of money into AI/ML, so they definitely want to get in to AI.

Re: Intel is dying and we can’t save it

#194

Post by yboris »

dylan604 wrote: post #111
dathinab wrote: post #28

I see Intel not being dominant, having to take a back seat, shrinking a bit. But dying?? Nup, I'm not seeing this at all. I mean AMD for years survived in a situation much worse then Intel currently is. Intel's productions nodes might be behind TSMC's but they are still quite valuable, not all chips need 5nm processes. Heck we could say most chips don't need it. Intel is still innovating, just because they currently…

But not being hyperbolic doesn't drive clicks. Sort of like all of the headlines about Musk no longer being the richest man because the stock prices fell. Whoopee friggin boohoo. He still has more money than >99% of all humans on the planet. In sports it's fun to say that 2nd place is just the first loser, but that's all in jest and friendly banter. When making things like this overly dramatic, it serves nobody excep…

Side note: we, here on HN, all likely have more money than 99% of all humans on this planet [0] (the link is about income; wealth is even more unequally distributed).

Earning more than $60k/year puts you in the 1% already. [1]

[0] https://income-inequality.info/

[1] https://howrichami.givingwhatwecan.org/how-rich-am-i

Re: Intel is dying and we can’t save it

#195

Post by dcminter »

dathinab wrote: post #28

I see Intel not being dominant, having to take a back seat, shrinking a bit. But dying?? Nup, I'm not seeing this at all. I mean AMD for years survived in a situation much worse then Intel currently is. Intel's productions nodes might be behind TSMC's but they are still quite valuable, not all chips need 5nm processes. Heck we could say most chips don't need it. Intel is still innovating, just because they currently…

Side note, you probably mean "lag behind" rather than "lack behind", i.e. a time delay rather than an omission.

Re: Intel is dying and we can’t save it

#197

Post by throwawaytolk »

It always blows me away to see so much brand loyalty about cpus.

I really couldn't care less what architecture my chips are, or who fabricates them. All I care about is price and performance.

I write application software, the underlying hardware is pretty irrelevant to me and most of my peers too.

I think that as we lost national sources of pride and community structures at a local level, people transferred their loyalties to brands. LETS RISE ABOVE!

Re: Intel is dying and we can’t save it

#198

Post by Torkel »

dathinab wrote: post #28

I see Intel not being dominant, having to take a back seat, shrinking a bit. But dying?? Nup, I'm not seeing this at all. I mean AMD for years survived in a situation much worse then Intel currently is. Intel's productions nodes might be behind TSMC's but they are still quite valuable, not all chips need 5nm processes. Heck we could say most chips don't need it. Intel is still innovating, just because they currently…

Fast forward a few years. Look at the time it takes to design chips. Look at where the market and tech is going (M1 and AMD especially). Compare with RIM and Nokia. There is a "roadrunner" effect where a colossal company will continue for a few years on pure momentum. There are so many things speaking against Intel. And the facts you bring up as speaking for Intel seams more like short term momentum to me. I would guess at the following conversation in 5-10 years:

- "How did Intel die?"

- "Well, first slowly. Then quickly."

Re: Intel is dying and we can’t save it

#199

Post by tachion »

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote: post #175
AtlasBarfed wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"And in hindsight, the forecasted cost was wrong and the volume was 100x what anyone thought." And in hindsight, he was a moron, unqualified to lead an engineering company. When people point to MBAs ruining Intel. Point to that statement. You could invest in emerging markets. Or rearrange financial statements deck chairs to hit your stock options and roll your eyes at the nerds.

It's easy in hindsight, nobody knew iphone would take off so strongly. Did you sell the house and load up on Apple stock at the time?

While I agree it's easy in hindsight, you're not comparing apples to oranges here: comparing the comment author to a person running a business, with very high expertise in particular subject (chip making) and general subject (technology), having access to information not accessible to others (Apple plans and visions about the product, tech specs required, price asked, etc.) is not even close to being the same thing. I can see how a much better decision could be made very realistically given that expertise and information no one else had and yet the worst possible was made.

Re: Intel is dying and we can’t save it

#200

Post by qwerty456127 »

It just has to become more [power]user-friendly and concentrate on making as great CPUs and chip-sets as possible rather than on how to make people's life harder and extort additional money for every feature you reasonably want.

Every CPU should support multiprocessor configurations, every CPU should support ECC memory and VT-x, upgradability should be maximized (so you wouldn't necessarily need a new mainboard for a new CPU), the socket and the instruction set should be licensed to as many competitors as possible. Like in good old 90ies.

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