from Hacker News

Can Intel Come Back?

by pbalcer on 2/12/23, 10:09 AM with 23 comments

  • by narrator on 2/12/23, 11:34 AM

    You can spin up everything in tech in no time by just spending money unless it's a 3nm chip fab.

    However, fabricating chips is a business that everyone wants to outsource. It's work with nasty hazardous chemicals. Development and research are tricky and expensive and require a lot of physical grunt work. A lot of very smart engineers have to interface with technicians performing tedious and dangerous work that they have to not screw up. It's also one of the most important businesses in the world.

    Intel has to somehow make the culture and engineering work so that they can perform the physics, chemistry, manufacturing and material science to make a new chip fab. This is what they've screwed up so far, and what they'll have to make work if they want to get back in the game. Can they pull it off?

  • by drumhead on 2/12/23, 4:42 PM

    Intel arent generating enough cash for a massive burst of investment.They're losing ground to AMD on the desktop and are losing marketshare to AMD and ARM architectures in the server space.

    People are genuinely excited when AMD introduces a new processor but there's crickets and tumbleweed when its Intel.

    Where they were once the leading foundry, they cant even get past 10mm whilst TSMC and heading towards 3mm.

    Intel look like a company in terminal decline.

  • by dsq on 2/12/23, 11:09 AM

    One thing that may save Intel’s bacon big time is the increase of defense budgets worldwide as many countries go into a rearmament drive. All forms of weaponry today require chips, lots and lots of them.

  • by ksec on 2/12/23, 12:34 PM

    https://archive.is/tVdmJ

    Not entirely sure what is new here. And dont agree Intel ever left. The likely hood of current trend projection and inferring from publicly available information, Intel will regain their lead by 2025. Assuming Pat execute on its plan, which they seems to be delivering it on time if not ahead of schedule. It will however very unlikely to be great margin competing against TSMC even with subsidies. Most ( cough Peter M... cough ) analyst seems to be thinking either TSMC is doomed because they dont know how to play the political game of subsidy ( Not True ) or Intel is doomed because Intel will never catch up ( also not true ).

  • by 988747 on 2/12/23, 11:54 AM

    Well, Raptor Lake processors released recently are quite good, and it seems that Intel's EUV manufacturing processes will be ready this year. I think Intel has a chance to catch up with, or even surpass TSMC in the next couple years.

  • by h2odragon on 2/12/23, 12:51 PM

    One could've asked the same question 10 years ago. If you did, how's the last decade look, for Intel? Not bright.

    Better question: "Should Intel come back?" I think the world going to be better off once the monolithic block of Intel is no longer standing in the way of the flood of innovations they've successfully suppressed.

    They did some really cool stuff once, but that company is gone and what replaced it is a rent seeking monster.

  • by electroagenda on 2/12/23, 11:22 AM

    Are you sure Intel left?

  • by pbalcer on 2/12/23, 10:10 AM

  • by pjmlp on 2/12/23, 11:38 AM

    Last time I checked, there is enough Intel on desktop computers, laptops and servers sold across the globe.

  • by 2OEH8eoCRo0 on 2/12/23, 3:39 PM

    Come back? Their CPUs lead in benchmarks and real world performance.