Intel has fabs and, as we found out from Covid, we don't have capacity in old nodes either. Intel can very much still print money.
Fabless companies are really cool--until shit hits the fan and nobody will run your chips anymore--but, hey, who cares, it's not like that ever happens, right? I mean you'd have to get an enemy invasion or terrorist bombing or tsunami or earthquake or fire in the fab line or global pandemic--and, pfft, how common are those, really?
All it takes is some high-level dumbass trying to curry favor with Pooh Bear over Taiwan and suddenly Nvidia, Qualcomm, Apple, etc. have a net value of zero for the forseeable future.
But, hey, it's super more profitable to not actually have all that icky manufacturing. Ewwwwwww.
> All it takes is some high-level dumbass trying to curry favor with Pooh Bear over Taiwan
Or just one large earthquake to disrupt production for a few months. I'm sure that TSMC has planed for earthquakes, but they are still highly centralized, where as Intels have their fabs spread out nicely (not all the same node size so if you really need 5nm you might still be in trouble).
> suddenly Nvidia, Qualcomm, Apple, etc. have a net value of zero for the forseeable future.
That is an exaggeration. There is still Samsung, Nvidia even fabbed there few years back. It's worse than TSMC, but it's not like Intel is the only alternative.
Re-engineering a product for a different fab often takes years. And, if TSMC goes dead, nobody, not Samsung or Intel or anybody, would be able to absorb all the volume required, anyway.
Yeah, you are right. Though I am not worried about latest and greatest. We can easily run everything on Sandy Bridge from 2011. It's the other stuff that is underappreciated.
Everything has chips in it. From thermometers through vacuum cleaners, dishwashers, fridges, doorbells. And that is just consumer stuff. The machines that make the goods are full of electronics too. All infrastructure, from water to red lights, medical equipment...
We got a very, very small taste of it for cars in last crisis. And nobody is building fabs for legacy chips... Except China.
In a pacific escalation scenario, which I don't think is farfetched in the next decade, the CONUS would still be safe at least short of nuclear exchange.
Yup. Fabless is also totally dependant on churning out good designs. Intel's current gen chips are fine, compared to AMDs. Not great, not terrible, just competitive.
The reason Intel are worth less is because investors are actually assigning negative value to their fabs - until they see Intel churning out advanced chips again it's just a money pit.
Intel seems to be cutting corners to be faster what made their tech full of security issues. Now those issues are fixed by microcode.. and chips become less efficient.
Hardly.
Intel has fabs and, as we found out from Covid, we don't have capacity in old nodes either. Intel can very much still print money.
Fabless companies are really cool--until shit hits the fan and nobody will run your chips anymore--but, hey, who cares, it's not like that ever happens, right? I mean you'd have to get an enemy invasion or terrorist bombing or tsunami or earthquake or fire in the fab line or global pandemic--and, pfft, how common are those, really?
All it takes is some high-level dumbass trying to curry favor with Pooh Bear over Taiwan and suddenly Nvidia, Qualcomm, Apple, etc. have a net value of zero for the forseeable future.
But, hey, it's super more profitable to not actually have all that icky manufacturing. Ewwwwwww.