SemiAccurate Teases 10nm Failure Fallout

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
Staff member
Joined
May 18, 1997
Messages
55,598
Charlie over at SemiAccurate has somewhat of a story today that is not the usual tell-all that he likes to publish, but is rather a rolling rumor factory. Not that there's anything wrong with discussing rumors. Charlie is billing this as Intel's failed 10nm "crushing as "$20+B market cap tech giant." As always, quite the read.


The customer in question put their entire upcoming line of chips at Intel on 10nm, and Intel failed. There was no Plan B, no out, and according to multiple sources, the customer in question can not survive. This is mainly due to a major industry transition that is going on now, the company in question will not have a product to sell into it. This isn’t a mom and pop company with a trivial product line, it is a foundational technology giant.
 
"Please, note, we have plans to fix this. So, if you can stay alive for just another year or so until we can transition our 10nm factory over to.... Tesla!"
 
I don't usually mind Charlie's alarmism, at times certainly justified and often highly deservedly critical of companies. However, these pieces about unknown companies receiving huge damage annoy me, because it's simply not possible to call him out on his facts. While probably true, I'm left wondering what company it is, and meanwhile, this story is a lot of noise and 0 substance until we get some facts.
 
So for arguments sake, which company might that be? Something mobile phone related
 
Hmmm.. sounds rather bad. If this is the case of course. If it really is the case... Intel might be in for some difficult times.
 
R_Type said:
So for arguments sake, which company might that be? Something mobile phone related
Click to expand...


Well who in the smartphone manufacturing sector uses Intel chipsets exclusively? That should narrow the field considerably.
 
I am confused.

That "article" seems rather short. It's as if we got an introduction paragraph and a background of semiaccurate talking up what a big scoop they have, and nothing else.

If they want to sell what they post as Journalism, they are going to have to try harder.
 
Last edited:
euskalzabe said:
I don't usually mind Charlie's alarmism, at times certainly justified and often highly deservedly critical of companies. However, these pieces about unknown companies receiving huge damage annoy me, because it's simply not possible to call him out on his facts. While probably true, I'm left wondering what company it is, and meanwhile, this story is a lot of noise and 0 substance until we get some facts.
Click to expand...


What if this is to depress intel stock? People keep lamenting them, saying bad things but what if this is completely intentional and we are being taken for a ride?

I would point out that intel recently got rid of their ceo (for bullshit reasons, Aka reasons he,the ceo, put into place in the first place) They are going to shift the blame on him, try to ride this downturn for a bit and then profit hugely when the stock rebounds.
 
mdswish said:
Well who in the smartphone manufacturing sector uses Intel chipsets exclusively? That should narrow the field considerably.
Click to expand...

I believe the article wasn't talking about Intel's CPUs, but about their fabrication facility. It would be a company that contracts with Intel to make their chips.
 
viscountalpha said:
What if this is to depress intel stock? People keep lamenting them, saying bad things but what if this is completely intentional and we are being taken for a ride?

I would point out that intel recently got rid of their ceo (for bullshit reasons, Aka reasons he,the ceo, put into place in the first place) They are going to shift the blame on him, try to ride this downturn for a bit and then profit hugely when the stock rebounds.
Click to expand...


That would be an illegal pump and dump scheme and if Charlie D is complicit he could spend some time in federal "pound me up the ass" prison as a result.

Not that people don't break the law, but it seems ublikeöy this out in the open.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I am confused.

That "article" seems rather short. It's as if we got an introduction paragraph and a background of semiaccurate talking up what a big scoop they have, and nothing else.

If they want to sell what they post as Journalism, they are going to have to try harder.
Click to expand...
I think that is because they want to sell subscriptions for $1000/yr to get the rest of the story.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
That would be an illegal pump and dump scheme and if Charlie D is complicit he could spend some time in federal "pound me up the ass" prison as a result.

Not that people don't break the law, but it seems ublikeöy this out in the open.
Click to expand...

Pump and dump is the opposite of what i'm saying. They are speculating intel is doing poorly and then suddenly it's doing great. it's much harder to prove and prosecute.

"A pump and dump scam is the illegal act of an investor or group of investors promoting a stock they hold and selling once the stock price has risen following the surge in interest as a result of the endorsement. ... Pump and dump scams tend to only work on small and micro-cap stocks that are traded over the counter."

My main point is, we are likely getting taken for a ride.
 
viscountalpha said:
Pump and dump is the opposite of what i'm saying. They are speculating intel is doing poorly and then suddenly it's doing great. it's much harder to prove and prosecute.

"A pump and dump scam is the illegal act of an investor or group of investors promoting a stock they hold and selling once the stock price has risen following the surge in interest as a result of the endorsement. ... Pump and dump scams tend to only work on small and micro-cap stocks that are traded over the counter."

My main point is, we are likely getting taken for a ride.
Click to expand...

I'm no expert on the subject matter, but in a world where you can short stocks and profit when they do poorly I assumed that pump and dump regulations also covered the reverse situation when you intentionally harm a stock in order to profit on its demize.
 
Arm, IBM, or Qualcomm? I don’t think ARM makes their own chips, they just license designs.
 
quiktake said:
Arm, IBM, or Qualcomm? I don’t think ARM makes their own chips, they just license designs.
Click to expand...

That's what I thought about ARM too, but these things change so fast that I can't keep up anymore.

Qualcomm would make sense based on the description that "a lot of people in the industry rely on them". I guess it depends on what he means by a $20B company? If by revenue it's pretty close. Qualcomm was $24B last year. If its by market cap, Qualcomm is way too large, at some $85B.

To be honest, I don't even know what IBM does anymore. Consulting I thought?

I mean, they sold their PC business to Lenovo in like 2005, and sold their chip manufacturing to GloFo in 2014. I guess they still have some chip R&D?
 
Trimlock said:
Though Qualcomm used TSMC?
Click to expand...

Well, they are talking about next gen, right? Presumably, not too many have been relying on Intel for chip manufacturing already. Maybe I am mistaken, but I thought they only pretty recently started contract manufacturing chips. Traditionally they only made their own stuff right?

As mentioned, Qualcomm would make sense based on their statement that "an industry depends on them".

If we think about the mobile industry for a moment. Apple and Samsung design their own chips. Everyone else is more or less dependent on Qualcomm.

If Qualcomm goes down, every mobile company except Apple and Samsung could be in for a rough ride.
 
Last edited:
I don't think its ARM, the arm community post linked earlier says that ARM is a custom foundry client. The article from SA says they have not been announced as a custom foundry client.
 
He must be talking about broadcom or Qualcomm. This is why apple always sources their socs for two vendors.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
That's what I thought about ARM too, but these things change so fast that I can't keep up anymore.

Qualcomm would make sense based on the description that "a lot of people in the industry rely on them". I guess it depends on what he means by a $20B company? If by revenue it's pretty close. Qualcomm was $24B last year. If its by market cap, Qualcomm is way too large, at some $85B.

To be honest, I don't even know what IBM does anymore. Consulting I thought?

I mean, they sold their PC business to Lenovo in like 2005, and sold their chip manufacturing to GloFo in 2014. I guess they still have some chip R&D?
Click to expand...

IBM still makes and sells servers running their own chips (POWER8, POWER9, etc). They use GloFo for their fab as part of the 2014 deal
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
That's what I thought about ARM too, but these things change so fast that I can't keep up anymore.

Qualcomm would make sense based on the description that "a lot of people in the industry rely on them". I guess it depends on what he means by a $20B company? If by revenue it's pretty close. Qualcomm was $24B last year. If its by market cap, Qualcomm is way too large, at some $85B.

To be honest, I don't even know what IBM does anymore. Consulting I thought?

I mean, they sold their PC business to Lenovo in like 2005, and sold their chip manufacturing to GloFo in 2014. I guess they still have some chip R&D?
Click to expand...

I believe that IBM also does a whole lot of cloud computing and storage. There was a recent Forbes article showing about 17 Billion in cloud revenue for IBM.

BlueFireIce said:
No one ever got fired for picking Intel....
Click to expand...

There was the trolling ad banner AMD put up not long ago that would show this is likely to change.
 
hqdefault.jpg
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Well, they are talking about next gen, right? Presumably, not too many have been relying on Intel for chip manufacturing already. Maybe I am mistaken, but I thought they only pretty recently started contract manufacturing chips. Traditionally they only made their own stuff right?

As mentioned, Qualcomm would make sense based on their statement that "an industry depends on them".

If we think about the mobile industry for a moment. Apple and Samsung design their own chips. Everyone else is more or less dependent on Qualcomm.

If Qualcomm goes down, every mobile company except Apple and Samsung could be in for a rough ride.
Click to expand...
Yea but it’s hard to imagine that Q would be in bed with Intel, isn’t their bad blood their with Qualcomm during Intel over radio technologies?
 
Here is a conspiracy theory straight from an RV parked across the street form the parking lot right outside of left field. Intel purposely faults 10nm production to tank said company for their chip design patents (assuming they are mobile chips) so Intel can then buy said company for billions less to make sure they have something to help their struggling mobile chips.... Any takers?
 
The company is most likely ARM. ARM bet heavily on quick custom production @ 10nm with pre-designed modules. They were selling this capability to existing customers two years ago and it still hasn't delivered. ARM was relying on Intel for a quick transition to 10nm and were using Intel's reputation for solid engineering to draw customers for low power/high performance custom chips. Think of the smaller companies that have been waiting; the fallout is not going to be limited to ARM...
 
djand said:
The company is most likely ARM. ARM bet heavily on quick custom production @ 10nm with pre-designed modules. They were selling this capability to existing customers two years ago and it still hasn't delivered. ARM was relying on Intel for a quick transition to 10nm and were using Intel's reputation for solid engineering to draw customers for low power/high performance custom chips. Think of the smaller companies that have been waiting; the fallout is not going to be limited to ARM...
Click to expand...

It's tough to say if the financials are accurate for Arm Holdings, considering they've been owned by Japan's SoftBank since 2016.

If this were to happen though, it wouldnt be the end of the world. In all likelihood the likes of Google/Alphabet wouldd swoop in, buy the IP and continue to license it in order to help keep their mobile industry alive.
 
If you bet your company on an unproven, heavily-delayed process without signing a contract that would make good your losses....

Actually, I guess I wouldn't be that surprised. No worse than many of the corporate decisions we all see come out of CEO's/Boards that get paid ridiculous money to be "experts."
 
Have a third point to add, agreeing 100% with the two already mentioned:

So, 3), this is bullshit because:
- (much as i'm not exactly your Intel "fan") Truth is Intel's 10nm will be a true 10nm, as per the .7 rule; and they're the only ones sticking to the correct terminology. Meaning that when we get there, they will once again be years and years ahead of everyone else. Sadly, lol
- Their 14nm has been refined to a point where its only current downside is its pricing. A pricing that can be lowered further at any time and still be immensely profitable for them (yields). They're just not used to being pressured, or needing to compete. However, only a fool would conflate that with inferiority.
- No one else has 10 nm, nor will anytime soon. "Killed" by whom, lol? Check what "competition" stands for, in terms of size, then check what the real size is; it being not what they hype it as (see ""12nm"" [not even gonna mention """"7nm""""]). And anyway, these contracts come with clauses. The mere fact that this Deme-ririri-juan-whomever person mentions "no alternatives"? Tells me all i need to know.

People read that website?
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
If this were to happen though, it wouldnt be the end of the world. In all likelihood the likes of Google/Alphabet wouldd swoop in, buy the IP and continue to license it in order to help keep their mobile industry alive.
Click to expand...
That would high on the list of worst possible outcomes.
 
lucidrenegade said:
I believe the article wasn't talking about Intel's CPUs, but about their fabrication facility. It would be a company that contracts with Intel to make their chips.
Click to expand...


I should have been more specific. I was meaning Intel "mobile" chipsets. ASUS, for example, uses Intel mobile chips in their ZenFone line.
 
mdswish said:
I should have been more specific. I was meaning Intel "mobile" chipsets. ASUS, for example, uses Intel mobile chips in their ZenFone line.
Click to expand...


Used to. Asus hasn't released a phone with Intel CPU's since 2015's Zenfone 2.

Most of their current models use Qualcomm Snapdragon ARM chips, but there are one or two with MediaTek chips for some reason.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top