Only the fab part is. Intel needs to separate the two. Maybe Nvidia, AMD, or Qualcomm can buy the the fab part.

mschuster91 7 days ago | parent | next [-]

Why would either of these three be interested in buying a fab? The only other large player with its own fab is Samsung and Samsung has the same problem that Intel has, namedly a fab that is nowhere near close to TSMC.

I agree that Intel would be better served to spin off its fab division, a potential buyer could be the US government for military and national security relevant projects.

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tgsovlerkhgsel 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

In other words, both Intel and Samsung have state-of-the-art fabs once the advanced TSMC fabs are lost in China's invasion of Taiwan.

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adrr 7 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Someone could be interested. It could also be Global Foundries. High risk big reward bet which the government is willing to help mitigate some of the risk with funding.

They just need to separate business units.

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ryukoposting 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Intel has enormous 14nm capacity and the node has been fully depreciated for years now, I wouldn't be surprised to see them keep it around long past its time in the zeitgeist. I'd be willing to bet we're about a generation away from a deluge of demand for embedded chips made on that node. Several high-end microcontrollers are made on 18nm processes already.

I'm still rooting for them to separate the fabs from the IP, I just wouldn't be surprised if some of the fabs stick around longer than folks would expect.

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DanielHB 7 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Not an expert in the area, but I think the highest of the high-end chips is a big market, but not the biggest market as revenue for fabs. It is just the most profitable part of the market.

Maybe this changed with the AI race but there are plenty of people buying older chips by the millions for all sorts of products.

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mandevil 6 days ago | parent [-]

The key for getting (financial) value out of fabs is their time after they are the overtaken by the next node. The ability to keep the order book full after you have a better node is what pays off the fab. So its all the other chips- the chips for cars, for low-power internet connected devices, etc. that make the fab profitable. That is where TSMC's ability to work with different customers enables them to extract value from a fab that pure-play CPU makers struggle with.

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DanielHB 6 days ago | parent [-]

Ah, that makes sense. I guess Intel is stuck with making x86 CPUs for datacenters even on their old-node factories so they need to retool them for newer nodes more often/earlier because they don't have a foundry business.

	▲	mandevil 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		Oh, the integrated players (now pretty much just Intel and Samsung, but in the past people like AMD as well) have other things they make on these older fabs- modems, OOB managers, USB controllers, all the other chips that go on a motherboard, but these are lower margin than a pure-play fab can get selling to all of those customers who don't need the latest node. This is one reason Intel and Samsung are both hesitant about going to the next node- Intel has put out official statements that they are only going to 14A if they can get Foundry up with a significant partner, and Samsung is hedging their bets and being cagey about their own 1.4nm node (at least in English, I haven't seen any direct demand for a major foundry customer from Samsung, just statements saying that they were going to be delaying and might not be building it at all).

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Keyframe 7 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

AMD sold off its foundries, why would they buy some again?

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HDThoreaun 7 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Being fabless is a huge strategic advantage to chip designers. Intel's biggest problem has been that theyre stuck on shitty fabs. Nvidia, amd, and qualcomm do not want to be in that position.

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mhh__ 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

From a business perspective at least it seems slightly pointless to just be another fabless company?