Intel Wants More Than its Fair Share of CHIPS Act Money

[TheLostSwede]

During the Aspen Security Forums 2023, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger spoke on the topic of semiconductors and national security. During his speech, Gelsinger mentioned that Intel should get the lion's share of the US$52 billion US CHIPS Act money, simply because Intel is a US company. In Gelsinger's opinion, it appears that TSMC and Samsung don't deserve as much, despite both companies manufacturing semiconductors for US companies, with Samsung already having a foundry in Texas, while TSMC is still struggling with the construction of its Arizona foundry.

Admittedly, Intel has far more foundries in the US, but it also seems like Gelsinger forgot about other foundries, such as GlobalFoundries, but also companies such as Micron, Texas Instruments, Qorvo, NXP, On Semi, Analog Devices and so forth that all own foundries that produce their own chips on US soil. We'd expect all these companies to be eyeing the CHIPS Act cash and without many of those companies, Intel wouldn't be able to sell any of its chips, as many of them produce much needed components that are used to build motherboards, laptops and what not. Gelsinger was obviously pointing fingers at the current US China trade war and how the export controls are causing concerns with regards to the global semiconductor business. As such, Gelsinger wants Intel to have fewer restrictions from the currently imposed trade regulations, largely due to China being some 25 to 30 percent of Intel's market, with Intel being busy expanding in the country. Make what you want of this, but it's clear that Gelsinger is expecting to eat the cake and have it at the same time. Video after the break.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[Chaitanya]

Blood sucking parasite and whats funny is for common citizen of US its capitalism while for corporations its socialism.

 

[Fatalfury]

oh... how the times have changed... it looked like Intel was going to be the Biggest company in the world(like Apple now) due to its monopoly in Computer CPU,motherboards during the 2010 era. Also they had all the time & money in the world to make an world class GPU (that can acually compete with Nvidia and AMD).. But their greedy desires and they thought they shall control the world with thier monopoly stalling CPU improvements by literally staying at 14nm++ and quad cores CPUs for like 7 years .
In the meantime,
1) Intel let TSMC catchup and overtake.. while intel is at 10nm, TSMC has already moved to 3nm.
2) if they had started making GPU at 2010+, they would easily been an 3rd player and as Good as AMD/Nvidia..Also could have taken the profits during Cryptomining + pandemic wfh sales. Intel started making GPUs right after crypto crash and world returning to normal after pandemic.
3) when intel was safely riding at 14nm CPUs for 7 years.. they let AMD bring the best and almost they are equally Good as intel CPU and sometimes even better.

So Intel have only themselves to blame.. and now they bant the Big money by playing the "WAR" or "US home company" card.
if US GOVt had said it earlier.. then samsung or TSMC wouldnt have bothered making 1 fab in US

 

[user556]

I don't think the 14 nm debacle was by design. Sure, plenty else was though. And the CHIPS money is undoubtedly keeping Intel in the black right now.

 

[AusWolf]

Maybe I should get $52bn just because... you know... why not?

 

[lemonadesoda]

I disagree with State subsidies like this. Let the rest of the world sanction or impose tariffs against companies that obtain preferential treatment like this. The US did it to every other nation that supported its national industries/interests. And the money wont make anything any cheaper or more advanced at Intel…it had all the resources needed already. In will encourage waste inefficiency and executive expenses and bonuses.

 

[john_]

When there are billions of dollars there isn't any fairness. Everyone would want every penny they can't get and even more. Intel doing it publicly doesn't mean others don't try to get more money in more discrete ways.

 

[Deleted member 232534]

every other

name every other entity that gave the world free information networks and consumer electronics

 

[Deleted member 185088]

Blood sucking parasite and whats funny is for common citizen of US its capitalism while for corporations its socialism.

Nah, that's because Americans loathe socialism, while companies love it.

/s

In this kind of programmes, the state should get voting shares in exchange of every dollars spent, the government is spending citziens' money stands to reason they must have a say on how the money is being spent.

Companies then have a choice, continue their inefficient wasteful ways, or get help and focus on developing products, create more jobs.

 

[TumbleGeorge]

1) Intel let TSMC catchup and overtake.. while intel is at 10nm, TSMC has already moved to 3nm

Well, we are all aware here that these numbers in nanometers are just commercial designations.

 

[Wirko]

Well, we are all aware here that these numbers in nanometers are just commercial designations.

Sure but TSMC still packs as many sugarcubes per square foot as Intel says they will, some day.

 

[Verpal]

Nah, that's because Americans loathe socialism, while companies love it.

/s

In this kind of programmes, the state should get voting shares in exchange of every dollars spent, the government is spending citziens' money stands to reason they must have a say on how the money is being spent.

Companies then have a choice, continue their inefficient wasteful ways, or get help and focus on developing products, create more jobs.

If these are the condition, then it isn't really a subsidy or ''initiative'', but rather just company sell shares to institutional investor, just that the investor is government this time.
And if there is nothing special about this money, why should the company sell shares to USA? If USA is overpaying and the voting shares is comparatively just a token sum, then how is it functionally different from plain subsidy?

 

[ViperXZ]

oh... how the times have changed... it looked like Intel was going to be the Biggest company in the world(like Apple now) due to its monopoly in Computer CPU,motherboards during the 2010 era. Also they had all the time & money in the world to make an world class GPU (that can acually compete with Nvidia and AMD).. But their greedy desires and they thought they shall control the world with thier monopoly stalling CPU improvements by literally staying at 14nm++ and quad cores CPUs for like 7 years .
In the meantime,
1) Intel let TSMC catchup and overtake.. while intel is at 10nm, TSMC has already moved to 3nm.
2) if they had started making GPU at 2010+, they would easily been an 3rd player and as Good as AMD/Nvidia..Also could have taken the profits during Cryptomining + pandemic wfh sales. Intel started making GPUs right after crypto crash and world returning to normal after pandemic.
3) when intel was safely riding at 14nm CPUs for 7 years.. they let AMD bring the best and almost they are equally Good as intel CPU and sometimes even better.

So Intel have only themselves to blame.. and now they bant the Big money by playing the "WAR" or "US home company" card.
if US GOVt had said it earlier.. then samsung or TSMC wouldnt have bothered making 1 fab in US

I agree with many points but:

- they never were that good in CPU, AMD in multiple occasions showed them they're better and at least competitive,

- Athlon was the first CPU to break 1 GHz
- Athlon 64 revolutionised CPUs by integrating memory controller, something which Intel copied later
- AMD developed x64, not Intel. Intel's "version" of it was a utter failure (wasn't compatible and only 64 bit)
- Ryzen is the first ultra efficient core design, with smaller cores on x86-64 that are able to do what only Intels bigger core's barely can.
- Intel to this day couldn't catch up with the efficiency of ZEN core arch, over 6 years later
- AMD adopted AVX512, while Intel abandoned it (in consumer) because their CPU designs are sub-par.

Intel GPU:

- was a huge failure from the beginning (two decades ago)
- it's a failure now
- they never had the chops to do it, so saying they "would've catched up to Nvidia and AMD" is a mere fantasy

- basically who's too bad to work at Nvidia and AMD, goes to work for Intel, the corporate structure there is just toxic from what I heard in multiple articles and videos over the years
- they concentrated for way too long to just meet the numbers ($$$$), had regular managers as CEO, instead of engineers how it should be. After they realised money isn't everything, they brought in a engineer in Pat Gelsinger, after a long time, but the dude's a bit delusional and arrogant, thinks Intel is still the big player it was 10-15 years ago.

AMD on the other hand successfully revamped their structure and brought in one of the best CEOs possible with Dr. Su. The exact opposite of what happened at Intel. They also never resorted to corruption when their CPUs weren't good enough.

This (news) is another example of Intel trying for corruption / manipulation.

 

[AnarchoPrimitiv]

In my opinion, Intel shouldn't get a dime of that money and it should be used primarily to get NEW or smaller companies off the ground to DIVERSIFY the market, consumer options, and the supply chain. But, it'll probably just come down to who can make the most bribes...I mean "campaign contributions" like everything else.


And of course, like the $52 billions the airline industry got during covid or the bailouts of 2008, Intel will mostly use the money to inflate stock price and short term earnings by laying off employees, stock buy backs, and executive bonuses.

 

[zlobby]

That's called extortion or swidling and in many countries is a criminal offense.

 

[JAB Creations]

The "fair share" of criminally stolen money is: zero.

 

[AnotherReader]

In my opinion, Intel shouldn't get a dime of that money and it should be used primarily to get NEW or smaller companies off the ground to DIVERSIFY the market, consumer options, and the supply chain. But, it'll probably just come down to who can make the most bribes...I mean "campaign contributions" like everything else.


And of course, like the $52 billions the airline industry got during covid or the bailouts of 2008, Intel will mostly use the money to inflate stock price and short term earnings by laying off employees, stock buy backs, and executive bonuses.

Even for established companies like TSMC, building a new fab is extremely expensive. Imagine how expensive it would be to fund a startup in the semiconductor manufacturing business. Intel is one of the few American companies that are in that space. With that being said, their demand is ridiculous.

 

[dyonoctis]

In my opinion, Intel shouldn't get a dime of that money and it should be used primarily to get NEW or smaller companies off the ground to DIVERSIFY the market, consumer options, and the supply chain. But, it'll probably just come down to who can make the most bribes...I mean "campaign contributions" like everything else.


And of course, like the $52 billions the airline industry got during covid or the bailouts of 2008, Intel will mostly use the money to inflate stock price and short term earnings by laying off employees, stock buy backs, and executive bonuses.

I don't think that Intel should get the whole 52 billion either, but I'm not even sure that 52 billions shared across multiple small companies would be enough to diversify bleeding edge chips manufacturing.
From everything that I've read the current market didn't become what it is solely because of money, but also because of a literal "skill issue" that ended up putting once successful companies in the red with no means of recovery.

Intel is in their current situation because they made bad decisions about the node design, and took too long to figure out that their old closed Fab business model wasn't going to be sustainable to keep up with TSMC.

TSMC and Samsung are the most skilled founders at the moment so it seems logical to invest more in their American branch. Intel is a distant third.

 

[Zareek]

Blood sucking parasite and whats funny is for common citizen of US its capitalism while for corporations its socialism.

Maybe I'm reading what you wrote wrong, to me, it seems backwards. If it is assistance for a mega corporation, it is "capitalism". If it is assistance for a regular person, it is "socialism". The CHIPS act isn't assistance, it's bribery.

 

[defaultluser]

after blowing tons of money most-recently on stupid shit like that fab in Columbus (where the closest hard-sciences place is 3 hour drive away, in Pittsburgh @ Mellon), and they will have trouble importing chemical engineers into one of the most racist states (see: Dayton active clan location )

Intel Ohio Fab Breaks Ground, Leading Chip Plant Project Wave

The project will support roughly 7,000 construction jobs, according to Intel.

www.enr.com

or prior to that, the massive amount of cash plus nearly a decade wasted on the world's only 450mm fab:

Intel’s Long Awaited Fab 42 is Fully Operational

Intel’s Fab 42 joins fleet of Intel’s 10nm production facilities

www.tomshardware.com

The Lost Opportunity for 450mm - Semiwiki

I spent several days this week at the SEMI International Strategy Symposium (ISS). One of the talks was “Can the Semiconductor Industry Reach $1T by 2030” given by Bob Johnson of Gartner. His conclusion was, that $1 trillion dollars is an aggressive forecast for 2030 but certainly we should...

semiwiki.com

 

[ViperXZ]

TSMC and Samsung are the most skilled founders at the moment so it seems logical to invest more in their American branch. Intel is a distant third.

A third, but not distant to Samsung. Samsung proved time and again that they are not able to hold a torch to TSMC, so if Intel is worse than Samsung, it's not by much. Intel certainly has the chance to be better than Samsung.

 

[skates]

This subsidy, like all others will never end once started. Intel will have their hands out in perpetuity, like all others who have done the same and politicians who control it will build dynasties from which you'll never get rid of them and their brood. Invariably people will wonder why Intel can't compete, why their politicians are so corrupt and no one will remember why or how the subsidy started, it will be completely forgotten by the tax payer, year after year.

 

[AnotherReader]

A third, but not distant to Samsung. Samsung proved time and again that they are not able to hold a torch to TSMC, so if Intel is worse than Samsung, it's not by much. Intel certainly has the chance to be better than Samsung.

TSMC's ascendancy is relatively recent and owes as much to TSMC's good execution as Intel's terrible decision making. Before TSMC rolled out 20 nm, they were in danger of being two nodes behind Intel. Since then, they have been doing very well and finally surpassed Intel with the 7 nm process in late 2018. Also note that there will be three years between TSMC's N5 and N3 processes so TSMC has slowed down like Intel did after the 22 nm node. Let's see if this is a temporary slowdown or a harbinger of more slipping schedules.

 

[phanbuey]

A third, but not distant to Samsung. Samsung proved time and again that they are not able to hold a torch to TSMC, so if Intel is worse than Samsung, it's not by much. Intel certainly has the chance to be better than Samsung.

"Anyone can do great things with great people, It's those that can do good things with crap people that win out"

TSMC's success is on the backs of the brilliant and hardworking Taiwanese people and culture. They cannot replicate to the naked watermonkeys that inhabit the rest of the planet.

Intel is a close third with lazy westerners and clever Israelis -- they are far easier to scale than TSMC in reality, as we are seeing.

 

[R0H1T]

Maybe I should get $52bn just because... you know... why not?

Only after you repay me that $53 billion I gave the other day, just don't ask where I got them from

Invariably people will wonder why Intel can't compete, why their politicians are so corrupt and no one will remember why or how the subsidy started, it will be completely forgotten by the tax payer, year after year.

The smart ones don't forget, but then they can't do jack either because they don't enter politics!