Newsletter Archives

• Intel delays manufacturing in Ohio

  Posted on March 1, 2025 at 03:00 CST by Will Fastie • Comment in the Forums

  In a note published yesterday to Intel’s Newsroom, titled Ohio One Construction Timeline Update (recommended reading), the company announced that its construction timeline for its Ohio fabs has been changed. Originally, manufacturing was planned to begin as early as this year. A delay of five years has been introduced, with the first module now scheduled to go online in 2030 and the second a year later.

  Intel’s explanation for the delay is that it is matching demand to manufacturing. I lack any evidence to the contrary, but this seems more a matter of managing cash flow. My interpretation is a reduction in demand, because it suddenly appears that Intel has adequate manufacturing capacity to meet demand for the next few years. Bringing manufacturing onshore no longer seems to be a priority.

  I see no way to spin this as good news for the company, and it’s a blow to Ohio, at least for now.

  Intel Intel, Intel News, National Security, News, Ohio, Silicon

• Gelsinger is out

  Posted on December 5, 2024 at 16:11 CST by Will Fastie • Comment in the Forums

  
  On December 2, Intel Announced that long-time Intel engineer and CEO since 2021 Patrick (“Pat”) Gelsinger had retired from the company, effective December 1, 2024.

  Whether this “retirement” was voluntary or forced is open to question. However, he was replaced instantly with two interim appointments, David Zinser and Michelle (MJ) Johnston Holthaus, serving as co-chief executive officers. He also stepped down from his position on the board of directors. The speed of the action, just a month after Intel announced weak third-quarter financial results, suggests that the company desired a new direction.

  Mr. Gelsinger, with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering, had a long career, including Intel accomplishments such as the original 80486 processor, 14 other processors, and the Core and Xeon lines. During his 30 years at Intel, he became a highly regarded executive. But it appears that Intel’s recent troubles in manufacturing and chip architecture were overwhelming.

  There is already speculation about whether Zinser or Holthaus will become the next CEO. This may depend upon whether the board thinks the problems are financial, managerial, or technical. The elevation of Zinser/Holthaus would seem to signal finance and management because neither co-CEO has an engineering background. What this means for Intel’s Foundry business, which has also not performed as expected, is uncertain. The selection of an outsider as the next CEO is not out of the question.

  Intel and its processor architectures have long been the cornerstone of Windows. The rise of both Qualcomm and AMD, along with the foundry excellence at TSMC, could signal a sea change.

  Intel Intel, Management, News, Silicon

• Intel’s troubles

  Posted on August 12, 2024 at 02:45 CDT by Will Fastie • Comment in the Forums

  

  ISSUE 21.33 • 2024-08-12

  INTEL

  

  By Will Fastie

  In the nearly 50 years I’ve been following Intel, I’ve never seen the company in such disarray. Things are bad.

  On August 1, Intel released its financial results for its second fiscal quarter ending July 31. Although there was a tiny bright spot in its Client Computing Group (up 9% year over year), net revenue was down 1% and the company recorded a quarterly loss of USD $1.6 billion, nearly $3 billion lower year over year.

  Intel’s stock dropped by over 25% in the two following days. And that’s just one of Intel’s problems.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.33.0, 2024-08-12).
  This story also appears in our public Newsletter.

  Intel AI, Apple, Core 13900K, Core 14900K, Intel, Intel News, Microsoft, Microsoft Surface, Newsletters, Qualcomm, Silicon, Surface

• $52 billion for semiconductor giants — but will we get more chips?

  Posted on August 8, 2022 at 02:44 CDT by B. Livingston • Comment in the Forums

  SILICON

  

  By Brian Livingston

  President Joe Biden recently signed a $52 billion subsidy program for the semiconductor industry, within an overall $280 billion package called the Chips and Science Act, but will we see an easing of today’s maddening chip shortages any time soon?

  The short answer is “no,” but the reasons might surprise you — and you shouldn’t assume we’ll get no bang for our bucks at all.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (19.32.0, 2022-08-08).

  Silicon Legislation, Newsletters, Policy, Semiconductor Manufacturing, Silicon

• Make semiconductor chips without wasting water? Intel says it can.

  Posted on July 25, 2022 at 02:44 CDT by B. Livingston • Comment in the Forums

  PUBLIC DEFENDER

  

  By Brian Livingston

  Semiconductor manufacturing requires water, and a lot of it. But the Intel Corporation, one of the world’s largest operators of fabrication facilities, announced recently that it’s on track by the year 2030 to deliver to local communities 100% as much clean water as its plants use — and that the company is already generating more than 100% in some countries.

  How is that possible? If fabs require water to run their manufacturing processes, how could a chip maker end up with more water than it uses?

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (19.30.0, 2022-07-25).

  Public Defender Environment, Newsletters, Public Defender, Silicon

• The hard drive is dead; long live solid-state storage

  Posted on June 27, 2022 at 02:44 CDT by B. Livingston • Comment in the Forums

  SILICON

  

  By Brian Livingston

  The death of hard disk drives may be greatly exaggerated — after all, HDD manufacturers sold more than 250 million units worldwide in 2021 — but solid-state drives, which store data in semiconductors with no moving parts, finally overtook the unit sales of HDDs last year. The writing is on the wall for ye olde spinning platters.

  SSDs have many advantages over HDDs, including being much smaller in size and offering faster throughput. But even after years of cost improvements, SSDs are still a much more expensive choice.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (19.26.0, 2022-06-27).

  Silicon HDD, Newsletters, Silicon, SSD

• Will you be able to run Windows on an Arm processor?

  Posted on June 13, 2022 at 02:43 CDT by B. Livingston • Comment in the Forums

  SILICON

  

  By Brian Livingston

  The computing scene is up in arms, so to speak, about the latest Arm technology.

  Arm — which began as an acronym but is now more like a religion — is the technology that powers the latest Apple Macs, but it’s made only slight inroads into Windows machines due to software incompatibilities.

  Whether or not you know anything about Arm, you’re probably already using it. Arm-based systems tend to have much lower power requirements than systems using more complex central processing units, such as Intel processors.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (19.24.0, 2022-06-13).

  Silicon ARM, Newsletters, Silicon, Windows, Windows on ARM

• With its Radeon graphics technology, AMD is a powerhouse

  Posted on May 30, 2022 at 02:44 CDT by B. Livingston • Comment in the Forums

  SILICON

  

  By Brian Livingston

  At today’s breakneck pace of technological change, the semiconductor industry’s product cycles run faster than a one-legged man at a butt-kicking contest. This month, the scrappy multinational chip company AMD tried to kick some butt by claiming that its newest GPUs (graphics processing units) deliver far better price/performance ratios than Nvidia’s.

  The predictable result was a good ol’ pissing match between the two archrivals. But this takes nothing away from the fact that both AMD and Nvidia — as well as the industry’s Old Faithful, Intel — are permanently changing our expectations about how fast our machines can compute for a given fistful of dollars.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (19.22.0, 2022-05-30).

  Silicon AMD, Newsletters, Radeon, Silicon
• « Older Entries