Not sure if that means anything to NM, but I thought that was what was keeping the lights on there.
I'm certain that older fabs are being shopped around, as they have no place in the future of IFS, and selling NM to another foundry to outsource that production seems right in line with the corporate virtualization (vertical org dis-integration) that the Board and LBT seem to be pushing towards.
@d7 I've wondered about such non-core investments and think that the company does them in order to have leading edge technology, even if eventually they intend to sell off the technologies they have created.
Clearly if packaging were left strictly to those foundries, the latest advancements would not have happened, and Intel really needed what they are able to now do with multichip packaging. TSMC does similar development, for similar reasons.
Memory efforts over the years have (I think) all been sold at the point where they were no longer as leading edge. I'm pretty sure they all made a net profit.
Intel is a technology company, not just a CPU manufacturer. Right now there is a need to reduce efforts to the core business but once the company is profitable again then new ventures will likely be tried yet again.
@d4 The other poster explained the deal with packaging.
The company has done this before, capturing the leading edge then..stopping again when the true cost of owning packaging (for more than 1 product cycle) is fully realized, and yes, it is very much like what the company has done with memory over the years.
This is flawed strategy and poor consideration of investment. The company needs to invest in markets which can provide returns for more than just one technology cycle.
That the company has kept going back to packaging and memory after so many experiences with just how fleeting the gains are, speaks volumes about how broken strategic decision making has been at the company.
There might have been hope (or lies) of scaling these efforts to be large enough to be self sustaining, but the reality in each case was that these are standalone businesses and Intel can't get enough external volume to maintain the capital intensity required to keep the business running.
Looks like LBT gets that and is set to make the needed corrections.
This applies to IFS as well. If ultimately it can't get enough external demand to be self sustaining then it gets spun off or sold, because to keep absorbing these losses is unsustainable.
The clock is ticking..
@d3
the difference between CH8 and the 'older fabs' is a big one.
CH8 is not making any money, just future technology and a nice 'show pony' trying to get customers.
it has value but to be solely owned by INTC is not a good fit right now with IFS losing billions. INTC can't afford to invest in the future like this, especially substrates R&D
@d2 The site and likely the entire team would be sold to a substrate foundry.
Much like the anticipated sale of the other, older fabs.
No reason to mothball any of them and Intel can't afford to do that anyway.
Right now the oldest fabs are producing most of the volume the company is selling, so even if sold they would still be producing for Intel till those older nodes ramped down.
@d1 hard to imagine we would just mothball the factory. Best case seems to be some other ownership or JV as it's still an advanced glass substrate plant. 300 people left in CH8? with the news breaking, this doesn't sound like it will be done by July 15.
@a8
Yep. Talked to a few folks there yesterday. Said they found out from the news. No one knows if they will be given the option to go to another site, or just exited from the company.
@aj Advanced package is fine, it may just be outsourced. It isn't clear to me if this is what NM is producing but if that site were sold then it just means a different name on the paycheck. So really not a big deal to the workers.
Packaging needs massive scale in order to be sustainable, because of the constant and rising R&D costs. Intel and other companies have tried this before and left after a short period of time (typically at the end of 1 node).
Packaging technology changes with every node and is currently about the same cost as the die. This is why the industry has over time continued to use substrate foundries rather than try to maintain the scale needed to be internally sustainable.
This appears to be the same situation, where Intel is at the leading edge but needs a lot of whale customers to keep it going.
Much better to sell that technology to one of the substrate foundries and buy from them.
This in a way is no different than the many short lived ventures into memory, for similar reasons. It is just not economically viable to be 100% vertically integrated.
heard last years IOTY from sptd leading glass core left intel. sptd is done for.
NM is actually Intels only HVM for advanced packaging. Extremely important for Intel’s future.
None of you have any idea what you are talking about. Glass core was so 2024. Other things paying the bills now.
If that’s true, SPTD in Chandler is done for.
Throwing stones in glass houses.