Intel CEO Chen Liwu has implemented many major cost savings and reorganization strategies since taking office in March this year, including a plan to reduce 24,000 employees (relative to 15% of the total labor), stopping automobile chip manufacturin...
Intel CEO Chen Liwu has implemented many major cost savings and reorganization strategies since taking office in March this year, including a plan to reduce 24,000 employees (relative to 15% of the total labor), stopping automobile chip manufacturing operations, and suspending investment in crystal plants in Europe. The most important thing is to stop providing 18A processes and turn to 14A, and to indicate that if 14A cannot get customer order support, it may also stop launching and investment.
Most of the positive attitudes towards such a change market. After all, the investment in process and wafer manufacturing by former CEO Pat Gelsinger is generally considered to have been too rapid, but writers think this is another problem of chicken-heating egg-raising chicken. If everyone agrees that Intel's biggest problem at present is not semiconductor design but process, then it is reasonable to use it in the process. So to this day, although the outside world has been detested by the outside world about the 4Y5N (four-year five-point) that Pat first called, if the goal is to enable Intel to compete with NTI in advanced production, this kind of complaint is actually very reasonable.
Again, when most companies face difficulties, the movie is a seemingly reasonable strategy. Therefore, Chen Liwu's massive human resources and organizational reorganization are mostly understandable to the outside world. But don't forget: Intel is a semiconductor company and a top-notch semiconductor design company. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, if the goal is to bring Intel back to the battlefield of advanced processes, it is impossible to do without investment.
This also reminds the writer of CEO Bob Swan that year. Although the reasons for not investing heavily in research and development are not the same, the consequences can be predicted: Intel stopped at the 14-nanometer process that year, and then looked at his opponent AMD's 7-nanometer lane supercar with Taiwan's 7-nanometer lane supercar to fully compress itself today. The same is true for today's 14A: if Intel's attitude towards the 14A is still taking the lead, and if there is a guest, I will continue to do it. If there is no guest, I will give up. The writer can say sadly: This may also be Intel's last dance in the advanced process, and Intel will most likely never provide advanced process and tyres to confront the advanced process.
But this also raises a question, which is what is Intel's positioning in the semiconductor industry? Do you want to regard yourself as the only company that integrates vertically? Or should we vertically divide the company into a group of pure semiconductor design + a crystal foundry? The author believes that this is something that must be clear and clearly told to all inside and outside people.
If you still want to become a vertically integrated company, the primary purpose of the R&D process is to serve your own products. In the stage where NTU is ready to enter N2, 14A must increase and accelerate investment, with its future Nova Lake or Barlette Lake, it can face AMD's Zen 6 and Zen head-on 7; If Intel decides to settle the only vertically integrated enterprise position, the semiconductor design department will be more flexible in its choice of process, and the crystal foundry department must think about whether to compete with NTD on advanced processes. If (the US government should also hope that Intel will continue to want to narrow the distance with NTD), then 14A will also have to invest heavily.
So in summary, no matter where Intel is to continue to shine and heat, it is necessary to invest heavily in 14A. I also hope that Chen Liwu will understand that the first egg (or chicken) in the semiconductor industry is investment. Without this egg or chicken, Intel will not be able to back to the game.
Extended reading: Report to Trump: In fact, no one expects American manufacturing Did the micro-software cutter lose his job due to the decision to make a circle? Just want to solve the problem by purchasing, but you have to pay the price for the base employee
