#semiconductors

Curious if there was a specific percentage of people by group? or maybe overall?

There are rumors that DMOS5 and DFAB will become "one fab" but that's leaving a lot of us scratching our heads. Does this mean they will layoff at the fab manager, branch and section manager levels? What about supervisors and really - all of the org? How would it be possible to manage 3 factories combined (DMOS5 is 2 fabs already)? Sounds like a logistics nightmare.

Why do employees settle for less? CEOs and exec VPs making 100x-1000x times the average employee. Why do we make em’ so rich.

I mean if a company makes net income per headcount say $10M for instance , it does not make sense an employee average income is $150K, why don’t employees ask for $9M? Why should employees allow any more than 10% margin for employers

Trump wants manufacturing to Intel or GlobalFoundry?

Can Intel manufacture really make any for US companies? on 7nm, 10nm, 14nm?

Is it the usual deal, or have there been any changes?

This is a death blow to the Intel GPU+AI efforts and should not be allowed by the regulators. It is clear that Intel needs the downstream, low-cost GPU market segment to have a portfolio of AI chips based on chiplets, where most defective ones end up in the consumer grade GPUs based on manufacturing yield. NVidias interest is now for Intel not to enter either the GPU market, nor the AI market - which Intel was preparing for with its GPU efforts in recent years.

Nvidia’s investment in Intel coudl have far-reaching negative consequences. To begin with, Nvidia has every incentive to eliminate Intel’s Arc graphics line, which would be disastrous for consumers because Arc is the only product helping to bring GPU prices down. Without it, Nvidia would face less competition and prices could climb.

The loss of Intel’s graphics division would also harm Linux users. Intel’s approach to open, well-documented drivers has made their GPUs the most compatible and reliable option for Linux systems, while Nvidia has a history of being unfriendly toward open-source drivers. If Intel’s efforts end, Linux users will face fewer choices and greater difficulties.

Finally, Intel is currently the only company offering consumer-grade graphics virtualization through SR-IOV. If that disappears, Nvidia’s enterprise-level chips would dominate the market. This would mean ordinary consumers would be left with less performance, less flexibility, and weaker security on their personal computers.

Share what you know so we don’t have to be caught off guard.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/09/china-blocks-sale-of-nvidia-ai-chips/

Qualcomm CEO Reportedly Says Intel’s Chip-Making Technology Not Good Enough Yet

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/qualcomm-ceo-reportedly-says-intel-s-chip-making-technology-not-good-enough-yet/ar-AA1LY2qX?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=68bb496037644983bedf7ab17fb7c4f5&ei=20

Intel is now a government guided sh-t pile. Soon even the government will realize it is not worth keeping afloat.

It is lame now that Intel is no longer on the DOW and no longer needs to compete to survive. They should move Intel Layoff board to the Federal Government Layoff board

• SK Hynix and Samsung will need licenses for China equipment
• U.S. equipment makers KLA Corp, Lam Research and Applied Materials likely impacted
• New rule takes effect in 120 days

https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/society-equity/us-makes-it-harder-sk-hynix-samsung-make-chips-china-2025-08-29/

https://www.sdxcentral.com/analysis/the-5-firms-who-could-buy-intels-network-business/

Indian engineers at Intel are enabling semiconductor industry in India! After they are done transferring the technology they will again walk back to Intel as their friends are the corrupt managers! https://manufacturing.economictimes.indiatimes.com/amp/news/hi-tech/the-rise-of-the-intel-mafia-shaping-indias-semiconductor-future/123252445

not sure what to think here, sometimes i think it's the only viable option for moving forward. i just do not trust the bozos sitting in the ivory tower, they cannot do anything meaningful (aside from lining their own pockets and playing with careers of folks in the trenches)

With the Administration owning 10% of Intel (Phase 1), it's basically guaranteed that domestic companies who want to avoid tariffs and the Administration's ire will start sending business to IFS (Phase 2). Granted, it's unlikely going to be 18A, or even 14A anytime soon (but eventually)... but I think they'll test the waters with 14nm and 10nm... and packaging (heck, even Nvidia and Tesla signed on for packaging before this deal).

Phase 3 will be to arm twist TSMC into taking management of IFS, so it can be efficient and competitive. I am predicting that the Administration will entice TW by selling them more advanced we-pons, and make some more overt statements around TW's sovereignty.

Then finally, Phase 4, in five three to five years, IFS could be spun off as a working, profitable, stand alone company. Any sooner than that, they are just fooling themselves.

This will be the first step to ensure continuous innovation and cash flow. Now we have hitched ourselves to US taxpayers to maintain competitive advantage.

Those garbage companies like AMD and TSMC must be shivering already in their taiwanese sweatshops.

Next step is to improve yields. Intel will surpass garbage AMD soon wait and watch

Buy American, Hire American.

So many are still joining, drawn in by what Intel used to be. I wish they'd realize this company now only carries the legacy of something better it once was, and the reality is completely different.

Are we going to get a new Tshirt?

The Economist, Aug 21st 2025 | 6 min read

To survive, Intel must break itself apart

• And it should do so before it is too late

Intel once set the pace of technological progress. Gordon Moore, one of its founders, predicted in 1965 that chips would get faster and cheaper with metronomic consistency. Over the decades Intel brought Moore’s Law to life, designing and building the processors that powered servers and, later, personal computers. Today it makes headlines for its turmoil more than its technology. On August 7th President Donald Trump demanded the resignation of Lip-Bu Tan, Intel’s boss, citing his links to China, only to praise Mr Tan four days later after meeting him. Reports soon surfaced that the government was pursuing a 10% stake in the company, which would make it Intel’s largest shareholder. On August 18th SoftBank, a Japanese tech conglomerate, announced that it would invest $2bn in the company.

The drama has refocused attention on Intel’s plight. The company has missed nearly every big shift in its industry over the past two decades. It failed to profit from the rise of smartphones, was slow to adopt advanced lithography tools and has largely sat out the bo-m in artificial intelligence (AI). Between 2021 and 2024 revenue dropped by a third, from nearly $80bn to just over $50bn; last year it made a net loss of almost $20bn (see chart 1). Over the past five years its market value has fallen by roughly half, to around $100bn. TSMC, which has stolen Intel’s crown as the world’s leading chip manufacturer, is worth ten times as much.

Yet Intel still matters, as Mr Trump’s interest shows. The most advanced chips, vital for smartphones and AI, are now made almost entirely by TSMC. America’s tech giants depend on it. Such reliance on a single supplier—particularly one based in Taiwan—is risky. Intel is one of the few firms that could rival TSMC. But it will need more than government subsidies to do so. If it is to recover its chipmaking prowess, Intel will need to break itself apart.

Throughout its history Intel has designed and built its own chips. That integration let it use its manufacturing prowess to deliver better products even when its designs lagged behind. From the mid-2010s, however, repeated missteps in its manufacturing saw it fall behind TSMC. Deprived of that advantage, Intel’s processors became uncompetitive with those from AMD, a long-term rival which gave up on manufacturing long ago. In 2021 Intel, too, began outsourcing production of its most advanced chips to TSMC.

The erosion of Intel’s manufacturing leadership has coincided with fiercer competition in the market for designing processors. As recently as 2019 Intel controlled 84% of the global market for PC chips and 94% for servers. By 2024 those figures had fallen to 69% and 62%, respectively (see chart 2). AMD, using the x86 architecture pioneered by Intel, has developed better chips. Cloud giants such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft, which were once reliant on Intel, now design their own processors using outlines from Arm, a British company owned by SoftBank. In December Amazon said that half the server capacity it added in the preceding two years used its own silicon.

Pat Gelsinger, Intel’s boss from 2021 to 2024, tried to reverse the slide. He split design and manufacturing into two units, allowing the product arm to shop around for the best manufacturer while opening Intel’s chip factories, called “fabs”, to outsiders. To build a contract-chipmaking business, known as a “foundry”, Mr Gelsinger then set about splurging $90bn on new fabs in four American states. He tapped private equity and bagged nearly $8bn in subsidies under America’s CHIPS Act to fund his vision. But the plan was thrown into disarray by a combination of technical problems at the foundry, which deterred external customers, and falling sales at the design arm.

Pat on his back

Mr Tan, who took over in March after Mr Gelsinger was sacked, seems to have different priorities. He has rightly identified that the company is bloated; at the end of 2024 it employed 109,000 people, nearly as many as Nvidia, the leading designer of AI chips, and TSMC combined. Mr Tan plans to cut Intel’s workforce by a quarter by the end of this year. When it comes to AI, he believes that the firm should focus not on designing chips for training models, an area that Nvidia dominates, but on inference, the task of running them. As for the foundry, last month Mr Tan scrapped projects in Germany and Poland, and pushed construction of Intel’s advanced fabs in Ohio back to the early 2030s. He also hinted that the company might retreat from leading-edge manufacturing if it cannot secure external customers.

All that may help buy Intel time. Yet it lacks the boldness needed to save the company from fading into irrelevance. Evercore, an investment bank, reckons Intel’s design arm might be worth more than $100bn on its own. But it faces a crowded field and its products are no longer distinctive.

Mr Tan could sell the division to another fabless chipmaker such as Broadcom while it still holds value and focus solely on the foundry, which is troubled but holds more long-term promise. Its newest “18A” process incorporates transistors that are ahead of TSMC’s, as well as a novel way of feeding power through the back of the chip to save space and energy. SemiAnalysis, a consultancy, reckons Intel will need to invest a bit over $50bn between 2025 and 2027 to make it competitive in leading-edge manufacturing. A sale of the design division would more than cover that.

Parting with the design business would help in other ways, too. Foundries must serve many customers using the same process. To do so they provide “process design kits”—the blueprints chipmakers use to design their products. TSMC’s kits are broad and easy to use. Intel still tunes its kits for its own products first. One veteran designer who has used both says Intel “lacks the experience” of working with outsiders. Ian Cutress, a semiconductor analyst, notes that Intel sought to buy that expertise with its attempted acquisition of Tower Semiconductor, an Israeli foundry, but the deal collapsed after Chinese regulators withheld approval.

By making its foundry truly independent, Intel may be better able to persuade other chip designers to work with it. More customers would, in turn, make Intel a more compelling choice. Foundries live or die by yield—the share of chips that function as intended. New processes start buggy and improve only with volume. Foundries typically need yields above 70% to break even; the current rate for Intel’s 18A process is reportedly closer to 10%.

America’s tech giants would certainly welcome another alternative to TSMC. Samsung, the only other contender in leading-edge chipmaking, recently secured a $16.5bn contract from Tesla, a car company, to make AI chips at a new fab in Texas. But the South Korean company has a reputation for being difficult with customers and has faced technical challenges of its own. Indeed, if Intel’s shareholders would rather pocket the proceeds of a sale of the design arm, it is possible that a consortium of would-be foundry customers could be persuaded to invest instead. SoftBank has also reportedly expressed interest in acquiring Intel’s manufacturing business.

Intel faces a difficult choice. A foundry-only business would certainly be a gamble. But the longer it dithers, the lower the chance of success. Intel’s greatness once lay in doing everything. Its contribution in future may come from doing one thing well: making chips.

Source below. The Economist, Aug 21st 2025 - 5 min read

Donald Trump’s fantasy of home-grown chipmaking

• To remain the world’s foremost technological power, America needs its friends

How low mighty Intel has fallen. Half a century ago the American chipmaker was a byword for the cutting edge; it went on to dominate the market for personal-computer chips and in 2000 briefly became the world’s second-most-valuable company. Yet these days Intel, with a market capitalisation of $100bn, is not even the 15th-most-valuable chip firm, and supplies practically none of the advanced chips used for artificial intelligence (AI). Once an icon of America’s technological and commercial prowess, it has lately been a target for subsidies and protection. As we published this, President Donald Trump was even mulling quasi-nationalisation.

More than ever, semiconductors hold the key to the 21st century. They are increasingly critical for defence; in the ai race between America and China, they could spell the difference between victory and defeat. Even free-traders acknowledge their strategic importance, and worry about the world’s reliance for cutting-edge chips on tsmc and its home of Taiwan, which faces the threat of Chinese invasion. Yet chips also pose a fiendish test for proponents of industrial policy. Their manufacture is a marvel of specialisation, complexity and globalisation. Under those conditions, intervening in markets is prone to fail—as Intel so vividly illustrates.

To see how much can go wrong, consider its woes. Hubris caused the firm to miss both the smartphone and the ai waves, losing out to firms such as Arm, Nvidia and tsmc. Joe Biden’s CHIPS Act, which aimed to spur domestic chipmaking, promised Intel $8bn in grants and up to $12bn in loans. But the company is floundering. A fab in Ohio meant to open this year is now expected to begin operations in the early 2030s. Intel is heavily indebted and generates barely enough cash to keep itself afloat.

A factory worker in a red baseball cap holding up a shining silicon wafer
Illustration: Deena So'Oteh
The sums needed to rescue it keep growing. By one estimate Intel will need to invest more than $50bn in the next few years if it is to succeed at making leading-edge chips. Even if the government were to sink that much into the firm, it would have no guarantee of success. The company is said to be struggling with its latest manufacturing process. Its sales are falling and its plight risks becoming even more desperate.

The Biden administration failed with Intel, but Mr Trump could make things worse. He has threatened tariffs on chip imports, and may try to browbeat firms such as Nvidia into using Intel to make semiconductors for them. These measures might buy Intel time but they would be self-defeating for America. Chipmaking is not an end in itself but a critical input America’s tech sector requires to be world-beating. Forcing firms to settle for anything less than the best would blunt their edge.

What should America do? One lesson is not to pin the nation’s hopes on keeping Intel intact. It could sell its fab business to a deep-pocketed investor, such as SoftBank, which has reportedly expressed interest in buying it and this week announced a $2bn investment in Intel. Or it could sell its design arm and pour the proceeds into manufacturing. Intel may fail to catch up with TSMC even then. Either way, the federal government should not throw good money after bad. Taking a stake in Intel would only complicate matters.

That leads to a second lesson: to look beyond Intel and solve other chipmakers’ problems. tsmc is seeking to spread its wings. It is running out of land for giant fabs in Taiwan and its workforce is ageing. It has already pledged to invest $165bn to bring chipmaking to America. A first fab is producing four-nanometre (nm) chips and a second is scheduled to begin making more advanced chips by 2028. Samsung, a South Korean chipmaker that is having more success than Intel, is setting up a fab in Texas. But progress has been slow: Samsung and TSMC have both struggled with a lack of skilled workers and delays in receiving permits.

The last lesson is that, even if domestic chipmaking does make America more resilient, the country cannot shut itself off from the rest of the world. One reason is that the supply chain is highly specialised, with key inputs coming from across the globe, including extreme-ultraviolet lithography machines from the Netherlands and chipmaking tools from Japan. The other is that Taiwan and its security will remain critical. Even by the end of this decade, when tsmc’s third fab in America is due to begin producing 2nm chips, two-thirds of such semiconductors are likely to be made on the island. TSMC’s model is based on innovating at home first, before spreading its advances around the world.

To keep America’s chip supply chains resilient, Mr Trump needs a coherent, thought-through strategy—a tall order for a man who governs by impulse. No wonder he is going in the wrong direction. On Taiwan he has been cavalier, confident that China will not invade on his watch, while failing to offer the island consistent support. His tariffs on all manner of inputs will raise the costs of manufacturing in America; promised duties on chip imports will hurt American customers. He thrives on uncertainty, but chipmakers require stability.

A sensible chip policy would make it attractive to build fabs in America by easing rules over permits and creating programmes to train engineers. Instead of using tariffs as leverage, the government should welcome the imports of machinery and people that support chipmaking. Given the bipartisan consensus on the importance of semiconductors, the administration should seek a policy that has Democratic support—with the promise of continuity from one president to the next.

Economic nationalists should also see the progress of chipmakers in allied countries as a contribution to America’s security. Samsung is aiming to start producing 2nm chips in South Korea later this year. Rapidus, a well-funded chipmaking startup in Japan, is making impressive progress. Both countries have a tradition of manufacturing excellence, and may have a better shot at emulating Taiwan.

The chipmaking industry took decades to evolve. It is built for an age of globalisation. When economic nationalists build their policies on autarky, they are setting themselves a needlessly hard task—if not an impossible one.

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2025/08/21/donald-trumps-fantasy-of-home-grown-chipmaking

Does Intel need $ ?
Is this true? How does Jim Cramer see what others can't?

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/jim-cramer-says-intel-needs-033717705.html

Most of Intel's fabs, assembly and packaging sites are in other countries, not in US at all. Intel only has 60% fabs in US, and 99% assemble and packaging are in other countries (China, Malaysia, Penang, etc).

Does Intel count as a US manufacturing company? Its manufacturing in non-US countries is higher than other companies.

Heard rumors of a big RIF coming soon. Any confirmations on which locations? Which division?

Stock is up almost 6% after hours.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/softbank-group-intel-corporation-sign-231000755.html

https://wccftech.com/intel-xeon-6-6980p-hits-a-record-low-price-of-6190-half-the-official-msrp/

This could be half the official headcount

The White House has reached a preliminary revenue-sharing arrangement with Nvidia and AMD, requiring them to hand over 15 percent of their China AI chip sales in exchange for export licenses. However, officials concede that the deal’s legality and operational framework are still unsettled. Critics point to two major legal barriers: the U.S. Constitution’s Export Clause, which forbids taxes or duties on exports, and the Export Controls Reform Act of 2018, which explicitly bans fees for export licenses.

A Supreme Court ruling in 1998 struck down a similar export-related fee, reinforcing the potential vulnerability of the proposal. While the State Department does collect fixed fees from arms manufacturers under a separate law, the White House plan ties payments directly to export value, making it unprecedented and likely more controversial.

Supporters, including Trump, frame it as a way to raise government revenue while still allowing U.S. companies to sell advanced chips to China. Opponents warn it could be challenged in court by shareholders, state attorneys general, or other stakeholders, and that it sets a dangerous precedent for executive authority in trade policy. The Department of Commerce is still determining how to implement the arrangement, and officials have hinted it could be extended to other companies beyond Nvidia and AMD.

Altera, semiconductor company owned by Intel, announces layoffs

https://www.kron4.com/news/technology-ai/altera-semiconductor-company-owned-by-intel-announces-layoffs/

In the latest sign of ongoing struggles Intel, one of the semiconductor giant’s spinoff companies has announced dozens of Bay Area layoffs. Altera Corporation, a programmable logic devices (PLD) company that was acquired by Intel in 2015, will be cutting 82 jobs, according to state filings.

The layoff at Altera Corporation’s headquarters at Innovation Drive in San Jose are permanent, according to a filing at the Employment Development Department.

ntel layoffs: Chipmaker announces dozens more Bay Area job cuts

https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/intel-layoffs-chipmaker-announces-dozens-more-bay-area-job-cuts/

In the latest round of Bay Area tech layoffs, chipmaker Intel announced dozens of new job cuts. The cuts, according to state filings with the Employment Development Department, impact workers at several locations in Santa Clara, where Intel is headquartered.

The majority of the job cuts, 57, were at Intel’s headquarters on Mission College Boulevard. The chipmaker also cut 49 jobs at its location on Juliette Lane and a handful of jobs at its Bowers Avenue and Laurelwood Road facilities.

https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/politics/ohio-politics/ohios-intel-plant-has-been-stalled-for-years-now-trump-moreno-husted-are-getting-involved-heres-why#google_vignette

Ohio's U.S. Senator Bernie Moreno has joined President Donald Trump in asking for tech giant Intel's CEO to resign due to his reported ties to the Chinese government. Moreno has also asked for a fraud investigation into Intel's continued delays on the state's long-awaited semiconductor manufacturing plant.

GlobalFoundries Inc. owes Katana Silicon Technologies LLC $9.2 million for infringing a patent by selling semiconductor products.

GlobalFoundries GaN Chip Manufacturing Advances with $9.5 Million U.S. Federal Funding