311–320 of 761 posts
What I really want to know, from someone who does know: Is Intel cooked? Like, will they be able to manufacture chips that compete with TSMC? They used to be a crown-jewel of US tech. But it seems like every time I read the news, they are announcing a delay or shutting down some product.
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tl;dr Intel desperately needs an activist investor.
Only if that activist investor acts with decisiveness, vision, long-term goal orientation, and demonstrates consistently high-integrity behavior. What has much more commonly produced good outcomes in such situations is robust public-private partnerships like the ones that produced the semiconductor industry in the first place. Run the list of innovations in strategically key technology and what will you find at one r…
That era of American history has passed. Innovation gives way to consolidation and cronyism. Think Mussolini’s Italy.
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AIPAC was founded in 1954.
Intel came to Israel mostly because Dov Frohman (one of Intels first employees who had worked with all the founders at Fairchild and also the inventor of EPROMs) pushed to establish an Intel dev center there when he moved back home. At the time, EPROM tech was Intels most profitble product until the 8088 and 8087, which were designed in Israel at the dev center (along with many of their chip designs).
Edit: Look, to whoever is out there on a downvote spree, I don't care if I get downvoted, man, but wild you'd just downvote people talking about a guy whose won multiple IEEE awards, has patents to his name, and has left his mark on EE, and isn't even the focus of the discussion at hand.
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Boards are low tech and low profit, does American company and workers even want to do it?
Yea, I work in the industry. There are players, but not exactly bountiful. Really the backbone of American electronics manufacturing is military spending. If the defense budget went away, there would be close to zero PCB manufacturers left. China makes higher quality boards, faster and for dramatically less money.
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The climate of uncertainty under Trump inhibits long-term investment, whether in chip fabs, car factories, or anything else. He has reminded us all of something that's really always been a problem: whatever one Congress or one POTUS supports can be undone by the next. Usually opposing parties have had the common sense not to immediately hit the undo button once they take office. E.g., Biden leaving most of Trump's pr…
I'm sorry, but to blame Intel's inadequacies on political climate is comedic.
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Intel's fab issues are overstated in my opinion. They were stuck on 14nm for a very long time because they bit off too much with 10nm. People act like that means ALL research in nodes smaller than 10nm must have stopped, but that's simply not true as research into tech and materials needed for smaller nodes happens in parallel. It's also noteworthy that GAAFET being a complete redesign of major parts of the manufactu…
On an emotional level I want to root for Intel (like most of the nerds here, they fabbed a good chunk of the magical elements of my childhood). It seems difficult to figure out if they are getting back on track, though. They always seem to just be a couple years from finally catching up to TSMC.
But so far nothing of the sort has happened for a long time. If feels like ever since Ryzen landed, they have been desperate to catch up but keep tripping on themselves. Losing Apple, while inevitable, has made them look even more irrelevant. They still do decent stuff for the most part but there isnt anything really exciting.
I do like what they are doing with Arc GPUs but it is clear those are loss leaders and it isnt really gaining that much traction.
Alas, this is a story where we will have a better understanding in five years from now.
What I really want to know, from someone who does know: Is Intel cooked? Like, will they be able to manufacture chips that compete with TSMC? They used to be a crown-jewel of US tech. But it seems like every time I read the news, they are announcing a delay or shutting down some product.
Intel's fab issues are overstated in my opinion. They were stuck on 14nm for a very long time because they bit off too much with 10nm. People act like that means ALL research in nodes smaller than 10nm must have stopped, but that's simply not true as research into tech and materials needed for smaller nodes happens in parallel. It's also noteworthy that GAAFET being a complete redesign of major parts of the manufactu…
18A is canceled for foundry customers, it's not going to save them. If they can't get it together for 14A, they are toast.
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They can make advanced chips in Arizona, but the bleeding edge is in Taiwan. Arizona can make TSMC’s 4nm process, but in Taiwan they’re doing 3nm and ramping up 2nm.
Progress on the 2nm facility (P3) in Arizona is apparently ahead of schedule, slated to be operational in 2027
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Intel's fab issues are overstated in my opinion. They were stuck on 14nm for a very long time because they bit off too much with 10nm. People act like that means ALL research in nodes smaller than 10nm must have stopped, but that's simply not true as research into tech and materials needed for smaller nodes happens in parallel. It's also noteworthy that GAAFET being a complete redesign of major parts of the manufactu…
They just farmed out the compute section of Nova Lake to TSMC which is a sad statement (probably a good business decision, though).