For decades, Intel was the leading maker of the world’s most advanced chips. Of late, the company has been unable to keep up with the pace of change that co-founder Gordon Moore forecast for the technology industry.
Moore’s Law predicted that the density of transistors able to fit on a chip would double approximately every two years.
“Intel was the Moore’s Law company and the undisputed leader,” said Christopher Rolland, an analyst at Susquehanna. “And something that was supposed to take them two years instead took them more than five. And they still struggle to get back on Moore’s Law today.”
While Intel’s newly released Alder Lake CPUs are packed with competitive features, its chip technology is behind that of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and Samsung. Fifty years after Intel debuted the 4004, the world’s first CPU, it’s been hindered by several production delays.
“We had some missteps,” said Pat Gelsinger, who took over as Intel’s CEO in February. “The strategy had become a little bit confused on the role that we’re going to play in manufacturing for the long term. And now we’re leaning back into that with clarity, with clear urgency.”
Gelsinger has an ambitious roadmap to catch and surpass Samsung and TSMC by 2025. Key to the plan is a series of massive new chip fabrication plants, or fabs, that Intel is building in the U.S., Europe and Israel. Combined, they will cost more than $44 billion to build.
“I think I have more concrete trucks working for me today than any other human on the planet,” Gelsinger said. “We have construction in Oregon, New Mexico, Arizona, Ireland and Israel. And we expect to plant our next major fabs in the U.S. and Europe before the end of this year.”
Doubling down on manufacturing is one of the major moves Gelsinger has made since taking the helm. He also recently announced Intel Foundry Services, a business that opens up Intel’s fabs to make chips designed by Amazon, Qualcomm and other customers. For decades, the markets have rewarded giants like Apple and Qualcomm for being fabless. But the chip shortage has made manufacturing chips a more attractive business, allowing TSMC, for example, to raise chip prices as much as 20%.
“It takes time to build this infrastructure,” said Keyvan Esfarjani, Intel’s senior vice president of manufacturing, supply chain and operations. “But the good news is, the world is rallying behind building additional capacity.”
Intel senior vice president Keyvan Esfarjani and Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger at the groundbreaking of two new chip fabrication plants in Chandler, Arizona, on Friday, Sept. 24, 2021.
Intel Corporation
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