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Technology Stocks : Semi Equipment Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: Sam who wrote (85368)7/27/2020 9:33:37 AM
From: The Ox  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 95479
 
Message 32854111

...Why are we so annoyed at the way Ponte Vecchio was messaged on yesterday’s Q2/2020 Intel analyst call? Because of how far the company went to not say how broken things are on their process, and how much of the GPU is at TSMC now. It was intoned that much of the chip was already going to be outsourced so this is a minor change, not a big deal. It isn’t a minor change and it is a very big deal....



To: Sam who wrote (85368)7/27/2020 9:44:03 AM
From: w0z2 Recommendations

Recommended By
Sr K
The Ox

  Respond to of 95479
 
I don't understand why TSM can do what Intel with all of its own resources somehow can't do.


The article tells you why (which also happens to be why the Chinese cannot instantly compete, even with unlimited resources thrown at it):

"While Intel makes hundreds of millions of chips a year now, TSMC produces more than a billion annually."

This is the phenomena called the experience curve. I also believe past Intel management suffered from a case of hubris (especially re smartphones and RISC architecture) and forgot Andy Grove's mantra "Only the paranoid survive."



To: Sam who wrote (85368)7/27/2020 10:25:47 AM
From: Sun Tzu1 Recommendation

Recommended By
Sr K

  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 95479
 
Because manufacturing is not trivial. I can't remember which of the Intel CEOs said that innovation happens on the manufacturing floor not in the engineering desk (I think it was Andy). He went on to explain that once Intel slacked off DRAM manufacturing, it was never able to catch up and had to concede the market to Micron.

This is not just true in manufacturing. Anything with a strong analog component requires years of experience that needs continuous refreshing. Napoleon complained that he can never match the British navy no matter how much resources he puts in his navy because the British had sailors who had been on the sea since they were 12 and there was something about sailing that requires a lot of experience. Nor could he just just hire good sailors and expect to defeat the British navy.



To: Sam who wrote (85368)7/27/2020 10:26:32 AM
From: Kirk ©  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 95479
 
I thought Intel was ALREADY outsourcing many chips....
I don't understand why TSM can do what Intel with all of its own resources somehow can't do. I don't understand why that can't be fixed internally and why Intel doesn't Just Do It, as Nike used to say.
Intel bought Altera awhile back. I believe Altera programmable chips were made by TSMC.

Guessing:

Since they are programmable, they can get around minor yield issues by having larger chips and not using a bad section.

I believe that "fix" allows TSMC to get into volume production with lower yield sooner and thus "fix" the yield issues sooner for use with microprocessors where you can't program the chip to get around yield issues: a uP chip is either good or bad. Intel being smaller volume, may have lost their advantage they once had for being number 1.

This was the first time I heard the new CEO and my first impression was not great, he's not polished and not an engineer. This may have influenced the analysts too.