Thread regarding Intel Corp. layoffs

BK and the Qcomm bub he hired dropped da ball on the BXT line. They are blind.

@O0U0gjI-1zks BoD, CEO and MCM can take action but none brave, bold enough, just happy to collect their big comepnesation and walk the rank and file to survive as long as they can.

Intel stated to fail 20 years ago. 1) Dood-Frank gave companies an excuse to eliminate ISOs and big stock grants, so employee no longer felt like owners but just employees. Old long timers started feeling rich and caring more about their new house than working hard. Ask anyone in Oregon about that. i.e. no big upside from stock after 2000. They hung around and were allowed to so their options vested and longer because they had no life. 2) Addiction to the crazy profits of X86 and never wanting it to go away (or thinking it would). We did everything to thwart other architectures or non x86 products or less than $1000 ASP PCs, 3) TMG refused to be a serious competitor to TSMC or any foundry. We should have been the joint partner with TSMC when it started for low cost leading edge capacity. The design groups and marketing should have been free to chose the best foundry node for their product. If TMG wasn't competitive it should have been spun off as AMD did (one of the few good decisions AMD ever made) 4) keep the ARM license and realize it's just another embedded processor and create a slew of derivatives. 5) there was never a qualified successor to Andy. Everyone else had some collection of big ego, desire to line their pockets , good intentions, a worthless BoD, 3 year prospective to a golden parachute, "throw a dart" acquisition and business direction approach, no one to tell them were they were f-ing up.

What did Intel do right in the last 20 years? Get lucky that interest rates are low and keep a dividend that supports its stock price. (that's about to go away).

IMHO after being inside and outside Intel for 40 years. It still makes lots of money but the Titanic will sink and there's nothing other than drastic surgery left. That makes Intel into something else but doesn't keep the mother ship afloat and intact. It has to sink further before an activist group will force a break up to this bunch of old oblivious entrenched board members. They see what's happening but no one wants to take out the ax vs. the status quo. BK it's not your fault. You're just as unqualified as your predecessors and were dealt an unwinnable hand. So just take your $30M/yr and keep flailing until you get booted too. Employees at any level are helpless pawns.

BK failed his mission

@O0U0gjI-xgw and @O0U0gjI-qzs: I have first hand knowledge of the NPI process and would agree the primary problem and focus is playing musical chairs on who gets blamed, that originates in the highest VP levels in TMG and Divisions..."I got screamed at so now tell me why I shouldn't scream at you for f'ing up". By the time TMG gets the product, it is already behind and corners have been cut that are high risk. Also the people doing the planning in Divisions are simply not that competent to be making the expensive decisions they do in terms of using up fab capacity...they ask for things they don't need and produce a lot of waste in the process. They are mid-level analysts jerking around the whole factory network. My impression of the many steppings was that in order to produce anything in the ballpark of what a customer needs quickly, a known deficient NPI would be ran just to get it to boot up, with another stepping a several weeks behind it to start fixing real performance. Iteration isn't terrible, but cannot be sustained when the fabs are full and the pipeline is bursting with products that are ill-conceived (many run into a hurdle and never make starts Intel can sell).

@O0U0gjI-nyv All water under the bridge but the fruit offer was manufacturing not design, at the time Intel still was perceived as a leader silicon, manufacturing these days TSMC and Samsung are far superior

Boom. Yes. This.

Monopoly robbed Intel of a strong externally competitive culture. Instead of us vs. them (i.e. the external competition) it has become us vs. us for internal resources, credit and blame.

If you're a monopoly (or behave like one), the customer is lucky to get whatever you give them, even if it's not quite what they need and late. Apple wouldn't have put up with that for long...

getting out of ARM was THE mistake. Rot started when PowerPoint masters who don't know ABCs of execution reached top technical positions and assured PSO back in 2005 that x86 will match ARM soon in low power. Don't blame PSO alone. It is a combination of failures that have lead to the quality of leadership that there is today.

It is incredibly naive to think Intel would be in better shape if PSO took Apple's offer.

Intel couldn't design a competent mobile SOC whether ARM or x86. They just don't have the DNA to excel in the mobile market where you need a full 'tock' every 6-12 months.

Intel will have their XMM7460 modem in some of the Iphone 8. The modem is, of course, still 1-2 generations behind Qualcomm.

@O0U0gjI-xgw I was told to position everything so "we" couldn't be blamed. Senior management is so poisoned that the focus is on positioning to avoid blame versus work collaboratively.

Everyone is positioning how great they are blah blah blah not about what is the problem, how we are contributing and how we can fix it. It is always about how "someone else" are the problem. You want to admit you have a problem only means you are the problem. No TMG is the best semiconductor company on earth. Leader of Moore, best of everything. Why the hell does AMd or Nvidia kick intels A$$ in years past with such great silicon intel leadership, because the product groups s---. Look at all those steppings and PRT. Intel silicon is years ahead according to the latest Manufacturing Days

Why I wonder has no major design hose come to ICF ? Must be the great process!

@txr - this is a sincere and not rhetorical question - is TMG really that bad at producing products? Or getting the production pipeline ready on schedule for production ramp?

I've heard so much seeming contradictory things about TMG over the years, I don't know what's BUM propaganda vs objective critiques. I heard over the years on the one hand execution issues like "patterning problems" with 14nm, and then someone was trying to convince me somehow our 14nm FinFET process yielded more transistors per mm^2 than a TSMC (or was it IBM?) 10nm process.

I always thought Intel fabs were top-notch, but I keep hearing on this board that its ... ummm ... not so. What's the deal?

@O0U0gjI-qrg LOL if the world only new how many stepping intel products go thru. Now is that an issue with the spice models and DR from PTD or the terrible design capability, what do you think?

All I know no way TMG quality or Product team stepping would be tolerated in any other company. Monopoly has a way of making imbeciles think they are great

Even PSO said yes, Apple would have dropped Intel after 1 or 2 generation based on schedule delays and SoC performance issues. Apple wants to have new SoC with major performance improvement and new features every year. Do you think Intel would have executed flawlessly and delivered on time? I work at Apple and iPhone is now apple's bread and butter and any delay in SoC create major problem. Tell me in last 10 years which intel silicon is on time?

Can I get that supersized!