Intel CEO admits the company is no longer a top 10 chipmaker

winjer

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Intel, once the undisputed titan of the semiconductor world, is confronting a sobering new reality under the leadership of its recently appointed chief executive, Lip-Bu Tan. In a candid address to employees this week, Tan acknowledged that the company has slipped far from its former position at the top of the global chip industry.
"Twenty, 30 years ago, we are really the leader," Tan told employees. "Now I think the world has changed. We are not in the top 10 semiconductor companies."
Despite the grim assessment, Tan insisted that Intel's turnaround is possible, though he cautioned it would be a "marathon" rather than a sprint. The layoffs, he explained, are part of a broader effort to make Intel more agile and responsive, similar to its competitors, such as Nvidia, Broadcom, and AMD. Tan called on employees to embrace humility and to focus on listening to customers and adapting to their needs.

This is an impressive fall from grace for Intel, but at least the current CEO has no illusions of grandeur and knows things are bad and require a lot of work to improve.
 
Weird, isn't Intel one of the companies that most invest in technology? How did they fall back so far?

They had 2 CEO's that gutted R&D for almost 2 decades, to single digit percentage.
On the other hand, they managed to increase stock value a lot. And that made shareholders very happy.
But eventually, other companies caught up to them and surpassed them.
By the time Intel realized the damage, it was too late.
 





This is an impressive fall from grace for Intel, but at least the current CEO has no illusions of grandeur and knows things are bad and require a lot of work to improve.
This is a weird statement though. How is he determining Top 10?

From foundry perspective you have TSMC, Samsung and SMIC from CPU/APU side. And there are other la that focus on different aspects. Intel is still Top 5 just by nature of its foundries existing and on a fairly advanced node.

It feels the new CEO wants to dump foundry business and go full on design / software AMD style. From strategic US perspective that's not a good thing.
 
This is a weird statement though. How is he determining Top 10?

From foundry perspective you have TSMC, Samsung and SMIC from CPU/APU side. And there are other la that focus on different aspects. Intel is still Top 5 just by nature of its foundries existing and on a fairly advanced node.

It feels the new CEO wants to dump foundry business and go full on design / software AMD style. From strategic US perspective that's not a good thing.

He is probably considering both companies that design and companies that produce chips.
Intel is one of the few that do both. And one that once ruled both camps.
 
He is probably considering both companies that design and companies that produce chips.
Intel is one of the few that do both. And one that once ruled both camps.
I mean yeah, they have fallen off from the top big time. But still, to consider themselves in Top 10 is kind of defeatist and I feel like he is setting up the company to break apart. And then jump off on a Golden parachute.
 
Weird, isn't Intel one of the companies that most invest in technology? How did they fall back so far?

They couldn't resolve the pellicle issue for the EUV process and that literally killed their momentum for fabrication processes 6nm and below.

The bleeding edge semi-conductor world is brutal. Once you fall behind on the scheduling for your next advanced high end fabrication process, you lose massive market share.
 
I mean yeah, they have fallen off from the top big time. But still, to consider themselves in Top 10 is kind of defeatist and I feel like he is setting up the company to break apart. And then jump off on a Golden parachute.
they can't spin off their foundry business because its losing billions and billions. they are fcked
 
AMD has been killing it with their CPUs at great price and power since AM4 and onwards. Really happy with my AMD mobo CPU and don't need anything else. Intel got itself to blame by being too conservative during the AI rush.
 
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and yet, no solutions were given. They're betting big on Intel Foundry Services with their new node, which some in the industry feel as if they may have struck gold with the 14A node that can compete with TSMC's N2 next year…

We'll see if they can attract a major client.
 
I still buy Intel out of habit but I'll likely get something else when I upgrade again. Is AMD the best option these days?

Kacho just got out of a vault!

Fallout Sunlight GIF by Xbox
 
and yet, no solutions were given. They're betting big on Intel Foundry Services with their new node, which some in the industry feel as if they may have struck gold with the 14A node that can compete with TSMC's N2 next year…

We'll see if they can attract a major client.

That is what the new CEO is doing. He is reducing the investment for 18A for third party customers, and focusing more on the 14A node.
So 18A will probably only be used on some Intel products.
 
That is what the new CEO is doing. He is reducing the investment for 18A for third party customers, and focusing more on the 14A node.
So 18A will probably only be used on some Intel products.
I'm certainly rooting for them, I just don't know who their clients will be. They have been in talks with Apple about the 14A.

I also read: Qualcomm, Boadcomm, NVIDIA and Microsoft all had interest.
 
I work in the UK and I can tell you, from mine and my businesses opinion...Intel was like the mother hen of the industry. Theyve supported us for 20 years, and many in the industry. Even in this mess they are trying to support in any which way they can, and thats employees who have been with the company for 10+ years who don't even know if they will have a job by the end of the year.

Intel fucked up, but its painful to see this fall. Im no fanboy of Intel and I have just purchased an AMD CPU + GPU. I just hope they can turn it around and come back with some exciting CPUs.

Once NVIDIA launch theirCPUs at CES, with Gaming CPUs coming later in 2026......I hope Intel can survive.
 
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they've become a finance/shareholder/MBA driven company, like Boeing. They can't make the long term investments one needs to make in this industry because it discrupts this quarter's cash flows and potential stock buybacks. It's been like this for a very long time, and now the rot is fully set in.

They're cooked.
 
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Intel make much more than just CPUs and GPUs. They are preferred over Marvel networking chips, and they make a kinds of other controllers. Many AMD motherboard have an Intel chip or two on them.

I'm glad AMD was able to recover as they were trash for over a decade. Hopefully Intel can learn the same lessons and get their shit together. Arc GPUs could be a whole new market for them, the B500 series cards have been great, and B700 cards would really disrupt the market. AMD was struggling against NVIDIA for a long time. And Intel first Arc cards leapfrogged over AMD in terms of features as raytracing performance was much better, and XESS was better than FSR3.
 
Intel make much more than just CPUs and GPUs. They are preferred over Marvel networking chips, and they make a kinds of other controllers.
Unfortunatly it relegates them to weird behind the scenes unglamorous unnewsworthy status.

I just recently learned about the company named Prestige Consumer Healthcare. Nice name that makes stuff that isn't so .... flattering.
Monistat, Pedia-Lax, Anacin, Efferdent, Beano

Intel has become the Beano of computer chips. :(
 
Intel make much more than just CPUs and GPUs. They are preferred over Marvel networking chips, and they make a kinds of other controllers. Many AMD motherboard have an Intel chip or two on them.

I'm glad AMD was able to recover as they were trash for over a decade. Hopefully Intel can learn the same lessons and get their shit together. Arc GPUs could be a whole new market for them, the B500 series cards have been great, and B700 cards would really disrupt the market. AMD was struggling against NVIDIA for a long time. And Intel first Arc cards leapfrogged over AMD in terms of features as raytracing performance was much better, and XESS was better than FSR3.
AMD was able to turn it around because they made a massive investment in R&D and had people in charge with a long term vision.

Intel does not have that and cannot do that. The last guy, who was a longtime engineer with the company, tried to make some of those investments and the money guys scolded him quickly and pushed him out.

Intel has absolutely no place, none, in the future of computing. They are riding off the fumes of the 2000s.
 
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Nice warning for Nvidia. If Nvidia stops innovating, AMD will come for them too.

Goes to show that appeasing shareholders does not make you a great company.
 
AMD was able to turn it around because they made a massive investment in R&D and had people in charge with a long term vision.

Intel does not have that and cannot do that. The last guy, who was a longtime engineer with the company, tried to make some of those investments and the money guys scolded him quickly and pushed him out.

Intel has absolutely no place, none, in the future of computing. They are riding off the fumes of the 2000s.
We'll see, their partnerships with TSMC for fabs in the US will at least keep part of them around.

And if the AI bubble has staying power, it would give both AMD and Intel a chance at so massive sales. The latest Strix Point mini PCs with APUs you can dedicated 96GB of video memory make for interesting AI workstations at only $2,000. Hopefully at least one of them will also make data center in-roads to make NVIDIA have to compete.
 
Nice warning for Nvidia. If Nvidia stops innovating, AMD will come for them too.

Goes to show that appeasing shareholders does not make you a great company.

Nvidia is in a complete league of their own in terms of innovation, to even think of linking them to intel is ludicrous.

They're everywhere in research papers affiliated with universities and they're at the front of almost every API changes while AMD is in the back of the class taking notes but not understanding what's going on.
 
We'll see, their partnerships with TSMC for fabs in the US will at least keep part of them around.

And if the AI bubble has staying power, it would give both AMD and Intel a chance at so massive sales. The latest Strix Point mini PCs with APUs you can dedicated 96GB of video memory make for interesting AI workstations at only $2,000. Hopefully at least one of them will also make data center in-roads to make NVIDIA have to compete.
they can limp on for years, just like Kodak or any number of dead American companies did. Heck they have been limping for a decade. When you think about the future of computing, literally every other company is better positioned than Intel.
 
they've become a finance/shareholder/MBA driven company, like Boeing. They can't make the long term investments one needs to make in this industry because it discrupts this quarter's cash flows and potential stock buybacks. It's been like this for a very long time, and now the rot is fully set in.

They're cooked.
Yep, that's exactly it. Like a lot of US companies, long term doesn't matter because CEOs are rewarded on quarterly or at most yearly stock fluctuations.

And this shit all started with god damn Jack Welch at GE.
 
At least he's not just tweeting bible quotes and hoping it works out

I do think Intel could be tremendously more valuable by 2030 if they get through this and get turned around, a number two foundry and a competitive chip designer hopefully with a strong second or third place in GPUs too.
 
It's good that he at least acknowledges the situation. It's the first necessary step in order to fix things.


That being said, Intel, you still owe me a Pentium 4 and a mainboard that it took out with it. That childhood trauma never made me touch Intel again. Always had AMD systems from that point on.
 
At least he's not just tweeting bible quotes and hoping it works out

I do think Intel could be tremendously more valuable by 2030 if they get through this and get turned around, a number two foundry and a competitive chip designer hopefully with a strong second or third place in GPUs too.
Will the board and the investors have enough patience though? They didn't for his predecessor. This will take years to correct.
 
I still buy Intel out of habit but I'll likely get something else when I upgrade again. Is AMD the best option these days?

There are tons and tons of enterprises that only buy laptops and desktops with Intel processors because that's what they've been doing for decades. That customer loyalty (or rather ignorance) must be what stops Intel from keeling over completely.
 
Tan called on employees to embrace humility and to focus on listening to customers and adapting to their needs.

This quote is so tone deaf. It's not the traditional "employees" that are the problem. Look in the other direction, and direct that at the board.
 
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On a positive note, Nova Lake-S is going well, and has been taped out. One negative note, it's not using Intel's own Fabs, instead, it's using TSMC's N2 node.


Intel's next-generation client CPU staple product, "Nova Lake-S", has reportedly taped out of TSMC's fabs in Taiwan. Our previous speculation from the rumor mill suggested that Intel would utilize its own internal 18A node, with help from TSMC's 2 nm high-volume manufacturing. According to SemiAccurate, Intel has taped out a compute tile on TSMC's N2 node, meaning that Nova Lake-S will likely utilize a mix of 18A and TSMC N2 for its compute tiles. A possible reason for this decision is that Intel is building a chain of fall-backs to rely on in case its 18A node doesn't deliver, or it anticipates demand so high that its internal manufacturing capacity can't provide. Either way, clients can expect the product to be delivered on time in H2 of 2026, but under the hood, some interesting solutions may be present.

As far as the exact date, the time from a tapeout to final product is months away. Right now, the taped-out silicon tile is being powered on in Intel's labs and tested, running various test cases that stress out the silicon for multiple use cases and check for correctness of operation. Typically, power on takes a few weeks to a month to achieve, and final high-volume manufacturing will commence only a few months later. From that point, another two to three months are needed for manufacturing and shipping the product, meaning that Q3 of 2026 is the most likely target for Nova Lake-S. As a reminder, the CPU will combine 52 cores (16 P-cores, 32 E-cores, and four LPE-cores) paired with 8,800 MT/s memory controller and Xe3 "Celestial" for graphics rendering and Xe4 "Druid" for media and display duties, making it definitely an interesting product, as well as a difficult manufacturing target due to the heterogenous complexity.
 
Weird, isn't Intel one of the companies that most invest in technology? How did they fall back so far?
Intel announced its Diversity in Technology Initiative in
January 2015, setting a goal to reach full representation of women and underrepresented minorities in its U.S. workforce by 2020.

As part of this initiative, Intel committed $300 million to support this goal and broader diversity efforts within the technology industry.
 
the way they fumbled their CPU market share is a generational blunder.

AMD absolutely destroyed them across the board basically
 
Will the board and the investors have enough patience though? They didn't for his predecessor. This will take years to correct.
Yeah honestly I would have let Pat see through his plan to 2027 at least, that's about one full silicon and fab design cycle which is easily 5+ years now. You can't hire a new guy and expect a fix within the quarter. Becoming the number two alternate to TSMC was a good plan, but required a lot of spending for a while culminating in 18A and 14A.
 
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