Intel Wants More Than its Fair Share of CHIPS Act Money

[Double-Click]

Shameless corporate greed enabled by the Federal government? Say it ain't so

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

Stewart / Colbert '24

 

[ViperXZ]

They cannot replicate to the naked watermonkeys that inhabit the rest of the planet.

Okay, calm down.

 

[phanbuey]

Okay, calm down.

Okay

 

[rv8000]

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 think the most ironic thing about this is that apple potentially wouldn’t be around if it had not been for intel based macs bridging their failure in the PC space until iPhone products saved them.

 

[zlobby]

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.

Agree. When politicians get into tech the outcome is only one - corruption. Well, you can always add zero useful work done, too.

 

[uftfa]

Jesus Christ, everyone in this thread just wants to be mad with no understanding the motivations or the objective of the CHIPS act altogether. Half of these people are just mad at the CHIPS act even exists. The biased headline only makes it worse. Do better @TheLostSwede, this is tagged as "News", not an editorial piece.

CHIPS act exists because US (and the west in general) is morbidly aware and scared of its dependency on Taiwan and Korea for its leading-end chips (both threatened by China and DPRK respectively). Especially when there was a mini silicon apocalypse during covid and everyone became acutely aware of how bad the semiconductor situation really is. As another commenter pointed out, these aren't handouts, this is bribery. All large economies are trying to bribe fabs to build facilites in their backyards ASAP.

Taiwan and South Korea have poured a metric fuck ton of money bringing up TSMC and Samsung - those companies didn't do it on their own. TSMC is literally a state project started by the government of Taiwan. Intel's point is that US should be doing the same for American companies rather than spreading it equally among American and foreign fabs. It's a fair question to ask if giving money to TSMC and Samsung, after they already got government funding from their "home" countries accomplishes what CHIPS act is trying to accomplish.

Of course, as a cynic you can point out that it is very convenient that Intel is the only American fab remotely close to being competitive with TSMC and Samsung, but the argument that they are making does have some genuine merit. If the US CHIPS ACT doesn't end up supporting a top-to-bottom (almost, ignoring ASML) American fab then it's not meeting its objective to begin with. The US stands to lose orders of magnitude more money than the 53 billion they've committed to CHIPS act if shit hits the fan. TSMC spent 33 Billion on capex by itself in 2022 alone. 53 billion spread across 5 years and across various companies in the supply chain is peanuts.

PS : I'm an Asian dweller and don't give a single shit if Intel or US tech industry collapses, but I'm playing "the devil's advocate" here to provide some perspective.

 

[ViperXZ]

Jesus Christ, everyone in this thread just wants to be mad with no understanding the motivations or the objective of the CHIPS act altogether.

Then you didn't (at least) catch the drift of my post at all. Don't exaggerate and don't generalize so easily.

 

[uuee]

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,

Yeah except for Klamath, Northwood (okay barely, but still better than anything AMD offered for more than a year), Conroe, Yorkfield, Bloomfield, Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge, Haswell, Broadwell, Skylake, Kaby Lake -when they didn't had competition

- Athlon 64 revolutionised CPUs by integrating memory controller, something which Intel copied later

Conroe mop the floor with A64 without an IMC.

- it's a failure now

Is an okay start to entering a new market

dude's a bit delusional and arrogant, thinks Intel is still the big player it was 10-15 years ago.

Intel is still a big player

 

[Dr_b_]

Intel building factories and other facilities in China, and yet asks for US tax money

 

[ViperXZ]

Yeah except for Klamath, Northwood (okay barely, but still better than anything AMD offered for more than a year), Conroe, Yorkfield, Bloomfield, Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge, Haswell, Broadwell, Skylake, Kaby Lake -when they didn't had competition

That's 1 win, and not as many as you counted, minimal improvements to the same architecture don't count as multiple Ws. And that's 1 Win because AMD had a terrible arch back then. Not a big W. A big L for AMD back then. Bulldozer was barely better than Phenom II at the beginning, that's AMD's making. As soon as AMD had an new architecture, Intel was losing again.

Conroe mop the floor with A64 without an IMC.

Now that's just childish.

Is an okay start to entering a new market

Not really, awful drivers (at release and even now in parts) are far from "okay".

Intel is still a big player

Not that big anymore and if they keep failing they will lose even more.