Also, a quote from Cristiano Amon, CEO and President of Qualcomm
"Qualcomm is excited about the breakthrough RibbonFET and PowerVia technologies coming in Intel 20A. We’re also pleased to have another leading-edge foundry partner enabled by IFS that will help the U.S. fabless industry to bring its products to an onshore manufacturing site."
Just given the recent Intel announcement where you're partnering with Intel on IFS, what sort of commitment is this on your part? Is that sort of a volume commitment at this point? I realize it's some ways out, but would it be fair to say that it's going to service the U.S. consumer?
Answer: Cristiano Amon -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Thanks for the question. Look, it's actually very simple. Qualcomm, we're probably one of the few companies that, given our scale, is able to have multi-sourcing at the leading node. We have two strategic partners today, which is TSMC and Samsung.
And we're very excited and happy about Intel deciding to become a foundry and investing in leading node technology to become a foundry. I think that's great news for the United States fabless industry. We are engaged. We are evaluating their technology.
We don't yet have a specific product plan at this point, but we're pretty excited about Intel entering the space. I think we all determined that semiconductors are important and resilient supply chain is only going to benefit our business.
Qualcomm has no product plans! They are simply discussing and evaluating the technology with Intel! If this is enough for Intel to call them a customer, how far along are discussions with the 100+ potential customers they touted. To SemiAnalysis, Qualcomm sounds like they are just another a potential customer. There isn’t any actual foundry deal in place.
What was the motivation for claiming a customer here when its clearly still in the evaluation stage?
Pretty simple, Intel gets to tout the win and keep pushing the narrative that Intel is on the comeback after stagnating for years. Intel’s 20A node looks like a real technology rather than a node with huge unproven technologies such as RibbonFET and PowerVia. The narrative shifts and Intel stock holders can be excited about the future, even if the actual business is losing market share rapidly.
I don't think Intel claimed there was a volume manufacturing agreement.
Semianalysis seemed to be ascribing to Intel the headlines news outlets used rather then what Intel actually said:
https://www.reuters.com/technology/intel-build-qua... The headline is "Intel builds Qualcomm chips" but in the article says "Intel did not give details how much revenue or manufacturing volume the customer wins would bring, though Gelsinger said during an event announcing the news that the Qualcomm deal involved a "major mobile platform" and engaging in a "deep a strategic manner.""
If one watches the actual event, Gelsinger announced they were "partnering with Qualcomm using their 20A process technology." On the other hand, he said "I am thrilled to announce that we have signed AWS as our first customer to use IFS packaging solutions." There's a big difference between those two statements, "partnering with" vs. "signed as customer". "Partnering with" seems a relatively common way to spice up an evaluative or development agreement. To say Intel "grossly exaggerated" is itself a gross exaggeration. What Intel said was vague and insipid, not an exaggeration. Perhaps they knew how news sites love to offer click bait in their headlines - even when the writer of the article seems to know what was an wasn't said and makes a note of it in the body of the article. If so it's a PR trick, but where did Intel exaggerate, exactly?
That seems to suggest massive confusion inside Intel (which may or may not be the same thing as "lying"). The official claim say a year ago was that - i4 and A20 were "pathfinder nodes" and for Intel-only use. - i3 and A18 were the Foundry nodes.
So that makes the above statement rather less than convincing -- even if QC loves A20, it's not available to them... Read more carefully and Amon says a lot less than "we have actually signed an agreement with Intel".
Note how now the ONLY Foundry node is A18. i3 as a foundry node appears to be dead. (I'm not making up i3 as a foundry node. Look at the slide below from mid 2022.) https://semiwiki.com/semiconductor-manufacturers/i...
So looks like Intel is back to business as usual – PR is trumpeting the glories of future Intel two or three years from now, even as the concrete steps required to get there are being cancelled, delayed, or modified by actual engineers on the ground...
Look, I don't enjoy constantly picking at Intel. But FFS!!! After 14nm, then 10nm, then years on 7nm, THEN all the nonsense about 5 nodes in 5 months (or whatever the slogan is) you'd think deleting one of those upcoming nodes from their public roadmap would require some sort of public acknowledgement and explanation. But no, let's just make the change and hope no-one notices...
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SydneyBlue120d - Thursday, April 13, 2023 - link
Very interesting and smart move from Intel."Qualcomm, who have individual agreements with Intel Foundry Services" AFAIK this is not true, it was just Intel dreaming so.
Gavin Bonshor - Thursday, April 13, 2023 - link
They do have an agreement with IFS for Intel's 20ALink: - https://www.anandtech.com/show/16846/intels-first-...
Also, a quote from Cristiano Amon, CEO and President of Qualcomm
"Qualcomm is excited about the breakthrough RibbonFET and PowerVia technologies coming in Intel 20A. We’re also pleased to have another leading-edge foundry partner enabled by IFS that will help the U.S. fabless industry to bring its products to an onshore manufacturing site."
SydneyBlue120d - Thursday, April 13, 2023 - link
https://www.semianalysis.com/p/intel-grossly-exagg...Question:
Just given the recent Intel announcement where you're partnering with Intel on IFS, what sort of commitment is this on your part? Is that sort of a volume commitment at this point? I realize it's some ways out, but would it be fair to say that it's going to service the U.S. consumer?
Answer: Cristiano Amon -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Thanks for the question. Look, it's actually very simple. Qualcomm, we're probably one of the few companies that, given our scale, is able to have multi-sourcing at the leading node. We have two strategic partners today, which is TSMC and Samsung.
And we're very excited and happy about Intel deciding to become a foundry and investing in leading node technology to become a foundry. I think that's great news for the United States fabless industry. We are engaged. We are evaluating their technology.
We don't yet have a specific product plan at this point, but we're pretty excited about Intel entering the space. I think we all determined that semiconductors are important and resilient supply chain is only going to benefit our business.
Qualcomm has no product plans! They are simply discussing and evaluating the technology with Intel! If this is enough for Intel to call them a customer, how far along are discussions with the 100+ potential customers they touted. To SemiAnalysis, Qualcomm sounds like they are just another a potential customer. There isn’t any actual foundry deal in place.
What was the motivation for claiming a customer here when its clearly still in the evaluation stage?
Pretty simple, Intel gets to tout the win and keep pushing the narrative that Intel is on the comeback after stagnating for years. Intel’s 20A node looks like a real technology rather than a node with huge unproven technologies such as RibbonFET and PowerVia. The narrative shifts and Intel stock holders can be excited about the future, even if the actual business is losing market share rapidly.
ballsystemlord - Thursday, April 13, 2023 - link
Interesting.Yojimbo - Friday, April 14, 2023 - link
I don't think Intel claimed there was a volume manufacturing agreement.Semianalysis seemed to be ascribing to Intel the headlines news outlets used rather then what Intel actually said:
https://www.reuters.com/technology/intel-build-qua...
The headline is "Intel builds Qualcomm chips" but in the article says "Intel did not give details how much revenue or manufacturing volume the customer wins would bring, though Gelsinger said during an event announcing the news that the Qualcomm deal involved a "major mobile platform" and engaging in a "deep a strategic manner.""
If one watches the actual event, Gelsinger announced they were "partnering with Qualcomm using their 20A process technology." On the other hand, he said "I am thrilled to announce that we have signed AWS as our first customer to use IFS packaging solutions." There's a big difference between those two statements, "partnering with" vs. "signed as customer". "Partnering with" seems a relatively common way to spice up an evaluative or development agreement. To say Intel "grossly exaggerated" is itself a gross exaggeration. What Intel said was vague and insipid, not an exaggeration. Perhaps they knew how news sites love to offer click bait in their headlines - even when the writer of the article seems to know what was an wasn't said and makes a note of it in the body of the article. If so it's a PR trick, but where did Intel exaggerate, exactly?
SydneyBlue120d - Friday, April 14, 2023 - link
After 2 years, is there anything more concrete about this agreement?name99 - Friday, April 14, 2023 - link
That seems to suggest massive confusion inside Intel (which may or may not be the same thing as "lying").The official claim say a year ago was that
- i4 and A20 were "pathfinder nodes" and for Intel-only use.
- i3 and A18 were the Foundry nodes.
So that makes the above statement rather less than convincing -- even if QC loves A20, it's not available to them... Read more carefully and Amon says a lot less than "we have actually signed an agreement with Intel".
A second interesting point raised by the ARM announcement is why an A18 announcement, but not an i3 announcement?
Well, take a look at
https://www.hardwaretimes.com/intel-cpu-roadmap-up...
Note how now the ONLY Foundry node is A18. i3 as a foundry node appears to be dead.
(I'm not making up i3 as a foundry node. Look at the slide below from mid 2022.)
https://semiwiki.com/semiconductor-manufacturers/i...
So looks like Intel is back to business as usual – PR is trumpeting the glories of future Intel two or three years from now, even as the concrete steps required to get there are being cancelled, delayed, or modified by actual engineers on the ground...
Look, I don't enjoy constantly picking at Intel. But FFS!!!
After 14nm, then 10nm, then years on 7nm, THEN all the nonsense about 5 nodes in 5 months (or whatever the slogan is) you'd think deleting one of those upcoming nodes from their public roadmap would require some sort of public acknowledgement and explanation.
But no, let's just make the change and hope no-one notices...