How many technicians and team managers who work in the clean room will be laid off? Which factories in the world?
20 replies (most recent on top)
@y5 The way this sort of thing typically works is the facility is essentially shut down, then sold. Then the acquiring company can decide who to rehire and under what conditions.
There are legal (and practical) reasons why it is done that way, especially where the facility contains so much expensive equipment.
Be open to the idea that one or more of the older fabs will at least be put into warm down, with all workers placed on unpaid leave.
Company could even be set to sell those fabs or bring in private equity partners. Either way the workload will get much tougher because either scenario would lead to significant staff reductions and shift to a contract workforce.
The fabs which already have EUV will get restructured to better benchmark TSMC. Other posters have covered this in detail, as the recommendation to make that change has been in place for at least 5 years, so not some speculative thing.
Is being converted to a contract worker the same thing as being laid off?
If not then OP should be fine.
I don’t think many techs will be fired. The fab machines don’t fix themselves. Anyone not directly involved with wafer manufacture is at risk of the chop
I don't believe OP will get many more paychecks.
OP will have the answer to his question in a couple weeks, then a lot of time to ponder where it all went wrong.
@ea I guess this is a revelation for you, but there is no strategy in place for doing anything beyond x86.
Even the AI efforts have had x86 core emulators.
The company clearly knows that ARM exists and is even willing to manufacture ARM chips if anyone should ask, and has even worked with ARM before, but long ago decided ARM would degrade x86 market share and hasn't worked back from that position to this day.
This, in the industry which is all about cannibalizing past products to fuel new growth.
Forgetting about the near future, this will be the first headcount reduction which will hit the fabs squarely.
This is because they have largely escaped the past few reductions, in anticipation of IFS winning some external customer wafer starts.
Now that reality has shown how foundries actually get started (hint: slowly), there is no need for what has always been considered by management to be excess headcount.
TD has their own issues, having built up headcount while attempting to catch up on technology. That reckoning is also happening.
This won't be the final downsizing for the fabs. It is merely the start of IFS restructuring to be more like a typical foundry instead of a bespoke fab serving internal customers.
What will follow will be increased use of contract labor and centralization of many fab support functions (DefMet and Yield in particular). These changes will take time and not be part of some large scale company reduction.
@ea Disagreeing with what seems to be a reasonable outline of what is happening is argumentative, par for the low level of discourse on this site.
The company has invited equity partners for the older ireland fab, so that is not speculation.
Deny reality all you wish, but it is looking like working in the fabs is going to be a hard way to stay employed till foundry picks up external customers.
@cm, I like how people write an opinion as if it’s a fact. So what makes you the all knowing expert? Because what I read from your post seems like a lot of an-l extraction, or pure speculation, or just your opinion however way you look at it.
You throw out percentages and years and opinions like the one below as if they are a facts.
“Of course by then IFS will be spun off and the rest of the business units are likely sold or merged with other companies, as there is no plan to replace x86”
So what makes you the all knowing expert?
None of your business
@b8 The older IR fab is being flogged for JV investment and that is likely coming to all the other non-EUV fabs.
The only thing that would justify building new mods to house EUV at those sites would be if some massive external volume were to happen and that is just not how foundries ramp.
Took GF a decade to get up to speed and if not for the govt of Taiwan, TSMC would have long ago gone bankrupt. Apples (small, so yield not an issue) iphone chips needing the latest node saved it.
LBT isn't gonna wait a decade for IFS to need more EUV fabs and within a few years those older fabs will ramp down, so better to sell them to private equity or another foundry, and buy back any wafers needed.
Time for IFS types to get real about what is coming. It's on a steep path to being a lot smaller.
@c5+ it may be speculation yet it is based on what is inevitable
Few posts on this site are not speculation.
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Its at-will employment. You can be fired at any time and for any reason. If this is unreasonable, then leave.
@c1, You should put a disclaimer on your post that whatever you are saying is all speculation.
No one currently knows the exact number but this is the start of what will be a realignment of IFS to meet benchmark standards for foundry, instead of the current configuration which was designed to serve the bespoke needs of the product groups.
I'd estimate that within 5 years that means more than 50% of the techs are contract workers and that Eng staff are reduced by (at least) a similar amount.
Add in the impact of AI and humanoid robotics and that means that eventually there are very few people associated with the fabs, period. Call it a 80% reduction or something.
Similar effect of AI on chip design and product groups, and that means that Intel is likely pointed towards a day when the current capabilities could be done with 20k to 30k people.
Of course by then IFS will be spun off and the rest of the business units are likely sold or merged with other companies, as there is no plan to replace x86.
LBT was chosen by the Board to manage this outcome.
@OP, I wouldn’t worry about it you will be okay, never mind that the last person I told that to was laid off that day. 😂
If so, FAB28 need to be concerned.
@OP, does anyone really know the true answer to your question. My 2 cents is if I wasn’t working in OR or AZ I would be slightly concerned.