[samdjstephens]

It’s about demand isn’t it? TSMC have red hot demand, it’s not hard to understand their urgency in setting up new fabs, wherever they may be. Intel don’t have the same incentive - their incentive is to take the money (because, why wouldn’t you), build newer fabs and hope for some breakthrough in demand. The urgency is not there: being complete before there is demand could be detrimental

[ksec]

>It’s about demand isn’t it?

Yes. There used to be a saying the most expensive Fab ( or factory ) isn't the most advance Fab, but an empty Fab.

You cant built without first ensuring you can fill it, you cant fill it without first ensuring you can deliver. And Intel has failed to deliver twice with their custom foundry. Both times with Nokia and Ericsson. How the two fall for it twice is completely beyond me, but then Intel are known to have very good sales teams.

Intel will need another Apple moment that has huge demand, little margin, but willing to pay up front. On the assumption that Intel is even price competitive. The Apple modem may be it. But given the current situation with Intel as they want to lower Capital spending I am not even sure if betting on Intel is a risk Apple is willing to make. Comparing to a stable consistent relationship with TSMC.

[causality0]

At this point I'm starting to wonder if Intel's corporate strategy is "pray all of the fabs in Taiwan are destroyed during a Chinese invasion".

[donavanm]

> On the assumption that Intel is even price competitive. The Apple modem may be it.

Which is super interesting/ironic with the entire reason for an “apple modem” is due to Intels failure there a decade ago. Bonus irony for the subsequent acquisition.

[Hikikomori]

IIRC you can add LG to the list of intel failures.

[amelius]

I don't get it. If TSMC has demand, then so could Intel. What am I missing?

[dehugger]

The missing bit is "TSMC makes better chips than Intel" and thus they have higher demand.

[jazzyjackson]

TSMC makes nvidia GPUs and iPhone chips among other things, intel doesn't

[guipsp]

You might be missing that you cannot just "port" across fabs.