formthirteen Posted January 22, 2021 Share Posted January 22, 2021 I don’t know how I would feel about rehiring retired design engineers. The rehiring of the Intel veteran from VMW goes along the same lines. It is almost like the line in the Blues Brothers Movie “ We are bringing the old band together: I guess the junior design engineers at Intel now are all getting the message and their resumes ready. Yes, good point. It's a complex situation and won't be easy to fix. If what I've read is true, engineers at INTC are underpaid (=less appreciated) and unhappier (=bad management) than those who work for competitors. Glassdoor seems to confirm this with a CEO approval rating of 99% for Lisa Su: https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Intel-Corporation-Reviews-E1519.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Intel-Corporation-Soc-Design-Engineer-Reviews-EI_IE1519.0,17_KO18,37.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/AMD-Reviews-E15.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/AMD-Senior-Design-Engineer-Reviews-EI_IE15.0,3_KO4,26_IP2.htm The new CEO, Pat Gelsinger, had a high rating among employees at VMware: https://www.glassdoor.com/Overview/Working-at-VMware-EI_IE12830.11,17.htm Best Places to Work: 2021(#57), 2020(#36), 2019(#51), 2018(#33) Top CEOs: 2019(#1), 2018(#78), 2017(#83) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MattR Posted January 22, 2021 Share Posted January 22, 2021 I agree with the above. Hard to believe the culture is that bad there that they need to bring people out of retirement. The New CEO was a good move but I was hoping for someone a bit more exciting. If you can't attract young talent then you'll have issues for quite some time. I'll be selling out today and taking what little profit I can get. Simply put there plenty of better values out there. I think the intention is to make these rehired people the managers and bring back a culture of engineering instead of the accounting that befalls so many older companies. I hope it works... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
formthirteen Posted February 10, 2021 Share Posted February 10, 2021 “Once Gelsinger has successfully regained Intel’s position as the premier microprocessor vendor in the world, we believe the opportunity for additional shareholder value creation is enormous,” Loeb wrote in a letter to investors that was viewed by Bloomberg. “The ability to leverage those resources in order to better capture the full unbounded growth of this market opportunity set makes us excited to be long-term shareholders.” Late last year, Third Point bought a stake in Intel and said the company had to stop a “brain drain” of technical talent to arrest a decline in its manufacturing capabilities. https://outline.com/t9cvL5 “This is a national asset. This company needs to be healthy for the technology industry, for technology in America,” Gelsinger told analysts late Thursday after pledging to keep most of Intel’s semiconductor production in-house. “It’s an opportunity to help and to unquestionably put Intel and the United States in the technology leadership position.” “Even if Intel does successfully execute on 7-nanometer, they are still a node behind TSMC,” said Raymond James analyst Chris Caso. “And we don’t think Intel can deliver leadership products without leadership in transistors because it has never been done before. That keeps Intel behind the industry for four more years.” https://outline.com/NJM7KV Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
formthirteen Posted February 13, 2021 Share Posted February 13, 2021 Baupost initiated a position in INTC in the last quarter. It's the third-largest reported position: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1061768/000156761921003545/xslForm13F_X01/form13fInfoTable.xml Baupost also owns Micron. It seems "Chipageddon" and COVID-19 have really helped the semiconductor sector, including SIMO, MU, and INTC: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/chip-shortage-spirals-beyond-cars-200059989.html I own SIMO (thanks Spekulatius) and MU. In hindsight, I should have bought more. I knew the price of processors and graphic cards had increased a lot from reading that people are selling year-old graphics cards and processors for a lot more than what they bought them for. Maybe this is the bullwhip effect? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullwhip_effect Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spekulatius Posted February 13, 2021 Share Posted February 13, 2021 Baupost initiated a position in INTC in the last quarter. It's the third-largest reported position: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1061768/000156761921003545/xslForm13F_X01/form13fInfoTable.xml Baupost also owns Micron. It seems "Chipageddon" and COVID-19 have really helped the semiconductor sector, including SIMO, MU, and INTC: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/chip-shortage-spirals-beyond-cars-200059989.html I own SIMO (thanks Spekulatius) and MU. In hindsight, I should have bought more. I knew the price of processors and graphic cards had increased a lot from reading that people are selling year-old graphics cards and processors for a lot more than what they bought them for. Maybe this is the bullwhip effect? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullwhip_effect I haven’t bought enough of SIMO either and sold some at ~$50 (yeah my low conviction bets perform better than my higher conviction bets lately) but I am not sure if the semi shortage is going to persist. Allegedly, some of it due to the chinese hoarding chips due to fear of US export restrictions, but that has become less likely after the election (perhaps). The chip industry in the last has been prone to extreme boom bust cycles (inventory build), but that has mellowed out with bettet supply chain control for more than a decade, but now with COVID-19 it is really hard to tell what is normal or not. The fact is that chip prices, memory, PC’s (desktop, notebook) and tablets are all seeing elevated demand and it is reflected in pricing. I would think that this is likely to normalize, but it might take a year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted March 24, 2021 Share Posted March 24, 2021 This is big news: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210323005981/en/ Announcing manufacturing expansion plans; beginning with ~$20 billion investment to build two new fabs in Arizona Intel 7 nanometer process development progressing well with tape in of 7nm compute tile for “Meteor Lake” expected in the second quarter of 2021 Announcing Intel Foundry Services with plans to become a major provider of foundry capacity in the U.S. and Europe to serve customers globally Announcing plans for new research collaboration with IBM Bringing the spirit of Intel Developer Forum event back this year with Intel Innovation event planned for October in San Francisco Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patience_and_focus Posted March 24, 2021 Share Posted March 24, 2021 This is big news: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210323005981/en/ Announcing manufacturing expansion plans; beginning with ~$20 billion investment to build two new fabs in Arizona Intel 7 nanometer process development progressing well with tape in of 7nm compute tile for “Meteor Lake” expected in the second quarter of 2021 Announcing Intel Foundry Services with plans to become a major provider of foundry capacity in the U.S. and Europe to serve customers globally Announcing plans for new research collaboration with IBM Bringing the spirit of Intel Developer Forum event back this year with Intel Innovation event planned for October in San Francisco Related to this, the FT commentary is a good high level read. The take at the end is that Intel's chance of success are rather low. Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC: the most important company few people have heard of https://www.ft.com/content/05206915-fd73-4a3a-92a5-6760ce965bd9 Some industry experts are sceptical. “I would say this is difficult because Intel tried this before a few years ago, and they could not make it work even though they still had the best process technology at the time,” says Sebastian Hou, head of technology research at CLSA, a brokerage. TSMC will not yield easily. With its huge capital investment plans for this year, the company has already signaled that it is determined to hold on to its lead. A “significant portion” of TSMC’s projected capital expenditure will go into extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines, equipment that is indispensable in cutting-edge fabrication units, says an executive at a semiconductor tool vendor. ASML, the Dutch company which dominates the EUV market, said on its most recent earnings call that its capacity falls short of demand. Industry insiders therefore believe that every order placed now by TSMC will help it keep any potential competitor at arm’s length. “For sure, the longer Intel takes to tackle their difficulties, the wider the gap will open,” says the semiconductor equipment company executive. “TSMC will remain unassailable for the time being.” Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spekulatius Posted March 24, 2021 Share Posted March 24, 2021 This is big news: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210323005981/en/ Announcing manufacturing expansion plans; beginning with ~$20 billion investment to build two new fabs in Arizona Intel 7 nanometer process development progressing well with tape in of 7nm compute tile for “Meteor Lake” expected in the second quarter of 2021 Announcing Intel Foundry Services with plans to become a major provider of foundry capacity in the U.S. and Europe to serve customers globally Announcing plans for new research collaboration with IBM Bringing the spirit of Intel Developer Forum event back this year with Intel Innovation event planned for October in San Francisco Related to this, the FT commentary is a good high level read. The take at the end is that Intel's chance of success are rather low. Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC: the most important company few people have heard of https://www.ft.com/content/05206915-fd73-4a3a-92a5-6760ce965bd9 Some industry experts are sceptical. “I would say this is difficult because Intel tried this before a few years ago, and they could not make it work even though they still had the best process technology at the time,” says Sebastian Hou, head of technology research at CLSA, a brokerage. TSMC will not yield easily. With its huge capital investment plans for this year, the company has already signaled that it is determined to hold on to its lead. A “significant portion” of TSMC’s projected capital expenditure will go into extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines, equipment that is indispensable in cutting-edge fabrication units, says an executive at a semiconductor tool vendor. ASML, the Dutch company which dominates the EUV market, said on its most recent earnings call that its capacity falls short of demand. Industry insiders therefore believe that every order placed now by TSMC will help it keep any potential competitor at arm’s length. “For sure, the longer Intel takes to tackle their difficulties, the wider the gap will open,” says the semiconductor equipment company executive. “TSMC will remain unassailable for the time being.” Intel does not use deep UV (EUV) and hence ASML lithography machines. They stuck with conventional longer wavelength equipment from Nikon (I believe) which most likely is contributing to of their manufacturing issues. In other words, they decided to take what appears now the wrong technical fork at the road some time ago and at least for the present cutting edge nodes, they are likely stuck with it and need to grind it out. On the positive side, ASML delivery constraints should not be an issue for Intel. I would think that for future nodes, they are also going to use (EUV) either from ASML or Nikon, if Nikon can bring a competitive product to market. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peregrine Posted March 24, 2021 Share Posted March 24, 2021 Why does this need to be winner-take-all, given the capacity issues in the semiconductor industry? Does Intel even need to be at the cutting edge to have a successful foundry? And from what I've read, the problem with their previous attempt at creating a foundry was that their process technology was highly specified for their own designs. Agree that this is a big challenge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gamecock-YT Posted March 24, 2021 Share Posted March 24, 2021 With their luck, they'll finish the two new factories right when the supply crunch is ending. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peregrine Posted March 24, 2021 Share Posted March 24, 2021 With their luck, they'll finish the two new factories right when the supply crunch is ending. Unlikely - there's only one foundry at the cutting edge and that's TSMC and a handful of others less advanced. Capacity increases do not appear out of thin air in this industry and it's not clear at all when demand growth slows given the explosion of use cases set to come. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bizaro86 Posted March 24, 2021 Share Posted March 24, 2021 With their luck, they'll finish the two new factories right when the supply crunch is ending. Unlikely - there's only one foundry at the cutting edge and that's TSMC and a handful of others less advanced. Capacity increases do not appear out of thin air in this industry and it's not clear at all when demand growth slows given the explosion of use cases set to come. On the other hand, if the folks who make the capital equipment for the industry are completely sold out, it seems like new capacity is coming somewhere. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fareastwarriors Posted March 24, 2021 Share Posted March 24, 2021 Intel Unleashed, Gelsinger on Intel https://stratechery.com/2021/intel-unleashed-gelsinger-on-intel-idm-2-0/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spekulatius Posted March 24, 2021 Share Posted March 24, 2021 Why does this need to be winner-take-all, given the capacity issues in the semiconductor industry? Does Intel even need to be at the cutting edge to have a successful foundry? And from what I've read, the problem with their previous attempt at creating a foundry was that their process technology was highly specified for their own designs. Agree that this is a big challenge. Well you are either cutting edge or low cost, TSMC is both together in one package and Intel is neither one and that doesn’t tend to work well. Global foundries tried to keep up with TSMC with leading edge product and they couldn’t do it and lost a lot of money along the way. Now they are trailing one generation behind which is way cheaper and they reduced cost and doing much better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meiroy Posted March 25, 2021 Share Posted March 25, 2021 Why does this need to be winner-take-all, given the capacity issues in the semiconductor industry? Does Intel even need to be at the cutting edge to have a successful foundry? All they need is some new government regulations with support from private American companies and they get a business moat out of thin air. I think this is very likely to happen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peregrine Posted March 25, 2021 Share Posted March 25, 2021 With their luck, they'll finish the two new factories right when the supply crunch is ending. Unlikely - there's only one foundry at the cutting edge and that's TSMC and a handful of others less advanced. Capacity increases do not appear out of thin air in this industry and it's not clear at all when demand growth slows given the explosion of use cases set to come. On the other hand, if the folks who make the capital equipment for the industry are completely sold out, it seems like new capacity is coming somewhere. There's only a select few companies that make the high tech capital equipment so they're facing capacity constraints as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted April 11, 2021 Share Posted April 11, 2021 A couple intel videos about CPU architecture generally. Haven't had time to watch it all, but seems good: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fareastwarriors Posted April 12, 2021 Share Posted April 12, 2021 Buy on the dip? https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nvidia-arm-idUSKBN2BZ23W Nvidia to directly challenge Intel with Arm-based 'Grace' server chip Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spekulatius Posted April 12, 2021 Share Posted April 12, 2021 50 minutes ago, fareastwarriors said: Buy on the dip? https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nvidia-arm-idUSKBN2BZ23W Nvidia to directly challenge Intel with Arm-based 'Grace' server chip The dip was when INTC was in the mid forties. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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