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Irish Times
23-04-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
Intel and Ireland: from world's most valuable chipmaker to struggling also-ran
Just five years ago, Intel was the world's most valuable chipmaker. Yet, in a technology world now consumed by AI innovation and dominated by other companies, most notably Nvidia, its fortunes have changed drastically. In recent times Intel's shares have plummeted more than 50 per cent and its market capitalisation stands at about $102 billion. As well as losing ground to chip rivals, it is under pressure to sell off its loss-making manufacturing business. Intel says it contributed €3.73 billion to the Irish economy in 2023 and was responsible for 0.7 per cent of overall GDP. As well as employing 4,900 people, it supports about 770 Irish suppliers with €284 million in annual expenditure. Ireland has had a long, mutually beneficial relationship with the US giant. Here is how it has played out amid recent difficulties. READ MORE 2019 – After three decades in Ireland, construction begins on the €17 billion Fab 34 in Leixlip. The multi-year project would double the manufacturing capacity in Ireland, enabling the production of Intel 4 and Intel 3, the company's most advanced process technologies. July, 2022 – Demand for its PC chips cools off from pandemic highs. Intel lowers its full-year revenue forecast. Shares fall. October, 2022 – The firm plans a major reduction in headcount. The company is battling a steep decline in product demand and is struggling to regain market share ceded to rivals. With pledges to slash costs, it looks at staff reductions and slower spending on new plants to net savings of $3 billion (€2.6 billion) by the following year. December, 2022 – Staff in Kildare are told to consider taking unpaid leave amid a slowdown in demand for its products and 15 per cent drop in PC sales. January, 2023 – About $8 billion is wiped off the company's market value following dismal earnings projections and unease at the slump in the PC market. Revenue forecasts are $3 billion below estimates. February, 2023 – Intel slashes its dividend payment to the lowest level in 16 years in an effort to preserve cash and focus on its turnaround. It says 'improved financial flexibility will support the critical investments needed to execute Intel's transformation during this period of macroeconomic uncertainty.' May, 2023 – Nvidia becomes the first chipmaker to hit a $1 trillion valuation. September, 2023 – Kildare's Fab 34 facility opens. Intel chief executive Pat Gelsinger says its 'critical chip' is the most advanced it has ever produced and will 'enable AI everywhere'. January, 2024 – The first batch of Intel's most power-efficient processor, the Meteor Lake, to aid AI and machine learning capabilities are shipped in what is dubbed its 'largest architectural shift in 40 years'. March, 2024 – Competitor Nvidia unveils its latest more powerful artificial intelligence chips with eye on extending industry dominance. June, 2024 – Apollo Global Management buys 49 per cent stake in Intel's Leixlip plant for $11 billion. August, 2024 – Intel moves to cut almost 17,000 jobs and suspend dividends as it attempts to restructure to compete artificial intelligence. The cuts are part of a $10 billion trim, but shares still fall 13 per cent. Management in Ireland begins consultations with staff on voluntary redundancies, understood to be open to about 4,000 people but with no specific target number. September 2024 – Staff told of plans to close its facility at Shannon by late 2025, with the base for the firm's operations moving to Leixlip. November, 2024 – Company books a €17.2 billion set of restructuring and asset impairment charges in an attempt to rebuild competitiveness. December, 2024 – As troubles continue to mount at the chipmaker, chief executive Pat Gelsinger says he will step down. March, 2025 – Former board member and semiconductor veteran Lip-Bu Tan (65) is named as replacement chief executive in a bid to revitalise the ailing company. Shares jump more than 11 per cent. April, 2025 – Intel agrees to sell its Altera chip unit to private equity group Silver Lake to raise cash. If follows a cost-cutting move in January which saw it separate Intel Capital into a new standalone fund. April, 2025 – News emerges the company is to cut more than 20 per cent of staff globally.
Irish Examiner
23-04-2025
- Business
- Irish Examiner
Analysis: Intel's Irish workers are too valuable to cut
Once the domineering force in computing and data centre processors, technology giant Intel's inattentive response to the global AI shift has led to it ceding critical ground to its largest rivals. The chipmaker is now struggling to keep up with key competitor Nvidia, which saw revenue climb to more than $39bn in its last fiscal quarter on the back of its datacenter unit, responsible for powering most generative AI models, which continues to soar in demand. In addition, rival Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing saw revenue in its last quarter total $26.4bn, also underpinned by resilient demand for advanced chips used in AI applications. Meanwhile, struggling chipmaker Intel saw revenue fall by 7% to just over $14bn in its latest fiscal quarter, with the company due to release earnings for the past three months on Thursday, which will offer the clearest look yet at the company's latest strategy to reverse operational lapses. In the past 12 months, Intel's stock has declined by about 43%, closing on Tuesday at $19.51, a far cry from its $34 share price in April 2024. However, also expected this week are plans by the embattled chipmaker to cut 20% of its staff, as new CEO Lip-Bu Tan aims to eliminate bureaucracy and streamline leadership across the firm. Assuming the top role just last month, Mr Tan has vowed to spin off company assets that he deems are not central to Intel's mission. The latest reported cuts follow efforts by the company in August last year to slash around 15,000 jobs. Intel had 108,900 employees at the end of 2024, down from 124,800 the previous year. Of that number, some 5,000 workers are based here in Ireland, concentrated primarily in the company's campus in Leixlip, Kildare. Some 300 employees are based at the company's research and development base in Shannon, however, the company announced last year that it would close this facility by the end of 2025 as part of its savings plan, with staff being offered the opportunity to move to remote working. Since 1989, Intel has invested more than €30bn in its Irish operations, with its Leixlip base home to the company's European manufacturing hub. In 2023, the chipmaker opened its €17bn Fab 34 factory, the largest construction project to ever be undertaken in Ireland, according to Intel, which doubled the chipmaker's manufacturing space in Ireland. In June last year, it was announced that asset management firm Apollo Global would provide more than €10bn to Intel to buy a 49% stake in the Fab 34 facility, with the transaction allowing the chipmaker to retain majority ownership and control the plant while also having access to funding needed to pursue future expansions. Intel's Irish base is its second-largest after the US and is paramount to the chipmaker's global operations. Its Leixlip campus is poised to produce the majority of its Intel 4 technology, which includes the company's extreme ultraviolet (EUV) chips, the most advanced semiconductor manufacturing technology on the market. According to Intel, EUVs play a 'critical role' in driving the company towards its goals of delivering five nodes in four years and regaining leadership in process technology by 2025. The Fab 34 facility in Leixlip is also part of what the company calls a 'first-of-its-kind end-to-end leading-edge semiconductor manufacturing value chain in Europe,' with the site being combined with a wafer fabrication facility in Germany and an assembly and test facility in Poland. Yet, despite Ireland being a cornerstone of Intel's global manufacturing footprint, the sheer size of its operations makes it unlikely it will come out completely unscathed by the chipmaker's latest round of global layoffs. Around 5% of all Intel staff are based in Ireland, with a 20% reduction in staff, if applied uniformly across operations, equating to more than 900 Irish job losses. But with a new facility able to serve viable markets for another few years, and a need for Intel to keep Fab 34's minority shareholder sweet to avoid any financial penalties, cutting a large number of Irish staff seems counterproductive from a purely business standpoint. Hence, while administrative and soon-to-be remote working R&D staff may be caught in the firing line of Intel's latest restructuring scheme, it seems unlikely that those on the ground on Fab 34 and the broader Leixlip campus will be hurt. On a global scale, they are simply too valuable.
The Journal
23-04-2025
- Business
- The Journal
Intel to announce plans to cut over 20% of staff, Bloomberg reports
INTEL IS SET to announce plans this week to cut more than 20% of its staff, Bloomberg News has reported . Citing a person familiar with the matter, Bloomberg said that the move by Intel aims to eliminate bureaucracy at the struggling chipmaker. The move is part of a bid to streamline management and rebuild an engineering-driven culture, the report said. The cutbacks follow an effort last year to slash about 15,000 jobs – a round of lay-offs announced in August. Intel had 108,900 employees at the end of 2024, down from 124,800 the previous year. Among the 108,900 global Intel staff are 4,900 people employed at their chip manufacturing plant in Leixlip, Co Kildare. It is not yet clear if the move by Intel to cut 20% of its staff will affect its workers in Ireland. A new chipmaking facility, Fab 34, is currently being built at the Leixlip site , estimated to have cost at least $20 billion (€17.57 billion). Advertisement Construction work is largely complete, according to Intel, and high-volume manufacturing of Intel Core Ultra processors on Intel 4 technology began there in September 2023. The chipmaker is scheduled to report its first-quarter results tomorrow. Last month, Intel appointed tech industry veteran Lip-Bu Tan as its new chief executive, who told the Intel team that it 'won't be easy' to overcome challenges faced by the company. Intel is one of Silicon Valley's most iconic companies, but its fortunes have been eclipsed by Asian powerhouses TSMC and Samsung, which dominate the made-to-order semiconductor business. The company was also caught by surprise with the emergence of Nvidia, a graphics chip maker, as the world's preeminent AI chip provider. Nvidia's strength is in chips for powering AI, which are coveted by tech companies competing in that technology. Intel's niche has been in chips used in traditional computing processes being eclipsed by the AI range. This is a breaking news story – more to follow Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone... A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation. Learn More Support The Journal
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Intel and TSMC agree to form chipmaking joint venture: Report
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Did the semiconductor manufacturing world just shrink a nanometer or two? Intel and TSMC have reportedly reached a preliminary agreement to create a joint venture to operate Intel's fabs in the U.S. The news comes from Reuters, which cites a report from The Information based on two sources familiar with the matter. Intel has not yet commented on the matter; Tom's Hardware has reached out to the companies for more information. Under the terms of the agreement, TSMC is said to own 20% of the joint venture. It is unclear which companies will own the remaining 80%, but earlier this year TSMc reportedly approached multiple leading fabless chip designers headquartered in the U.S. — including AMD, Broadcom, Nvidia, and Qualcomm — about investing in the joint venture, which would own multiple fabs in America. Both Nvidia and a TSMC board member later denied the discussions. This arrangement was reportedly influenced by the U.S. government, specifically the White House and Department of Commerce, as part of efforts to address ongoing operational difficulties at Intel. U.S. authorities view the partnership as a means to stabilize Intel: The IDM 2.0 strategy has faced multiple challenges as the company has so far become a leader neither in products nor in semiconductor production technologies. At the same time, the current U.S. government will not support sales of Intel's fabs to a foreign investor, especially TSMC. At this point it is unclear what exactly TSMC's involvement would be with Intel's American fabs — which cost tens of billions of dollars — many of which can only be used to make processors for Intel (including fabs capable of producing on Intel 3 and Intel 4 process technologies) and only one or two of which can make processors on Intel's 18A fabrication technology. It is also unclear how TSMC's plans to own 20% of Intel Foundry aligns with its own plans to invest $165 million in its Arizona Fab 21 site to make chips for its partners, including Apple. The financial markets responded quickly to this news. Intel's stock price increased nearly 7% after the report surfaced, which helped the company to recover after a drop of market capitalization caused by the new import tariffs that will be implemented by the U.S. By contrast, shares of TSMC traded in the U.S. dropped by about 6%, highlighting differing investor reactions to the deal. As both Intel and TSMC are in their quiet periods, they cannot make any comments regarding future plans or even factors that can impact them materially, but we have reached out for comment.
Yahoo
22-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Newsflash: Intel's all-important 18A node is officially 'ready' but what exactly happened to the 'five nodes in four years' thing?
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. "Intel 18A is now ready." So proclaims a new landing page on Intel's website for the company's all-important new 18A chip production node. But what does it mean for the PC? We already knew that Intel's next laptop chip, Panther Lake, is due to be made, at least in part, on the new 18A node. That's supposed to be going into volume production later this year, though we're not expecting 18A-powered laptops until early 2026. Intel's next desktop CPU, codenamed Nova Lake, is likewise a 2026 product according to Intel. So, what to make of Intel's claims of immediate 18A readiness? The new web portal is arguably more aimed at customers for its nascent foundry business than bigging up its own chips. "Intel 18A is now ready for customer projects with the tape outs beginning in the first half of 2025," the website says. In terms of in-house chips, Intel does call out the Clearwater Forest server CPU as an example of "18A in action" on the new website. Clearwater Forest was originally on Intel's roadmaps as a 2025 product. However, at the end of January, Intel pushed Clearwater Forest back to the first half of 2026, which doesn't exactly seem like a huge vote of confidence in 18A. Of course, 18A is the final part of Intel's bold "five nodes in four years" plan (also known as 5N4Y), which kicked off with Intel 7, then went to Intel 4 as used in the Meteor Lake mobile CPU, followed by Intel 3, Intel 20A and finally Intel 18A. It was mid-2021 when Intel's then-new-but-now-departed CEO Pat Gelsinger floated the idea. That means 18A needs to be ready for summer 2025 to be on track. With that in mind, the cynic might conclude that 18A's announced readiness for customers, all the while Intel doesn't seem to be able to get one of its own chips on 18A ready, is something of a PR stunt. Arguably, you might conclude that about 5N4Y in general. Looking at each of the nodes in turn, Intel 7 is a version of the same 10nm technology that Intel had been struggling with for a decade, so not really a new node. Intel 4 was certainly new, albeit a rebrand of the planned 7nm node. Calling Intel 3 a new node is a bit of a stretch, being as it is a revised on Intel 4. You could say the same about Intel 20A and 18A, but Intel cancelled 20A in any case. So, at the very least, Intel is down to four nodes in four years. But taken in the round, of the five "new" nodes, only Intel 4 and Intel 18A are unambiguously new. And it remains to be seen whether any chips on 18A are actually available within Intel's self-imposed time frame. Still, if 18A is as good as Intel is cracking it up to be, whether it's complete "ready" now or early next year probably doesn't matter. It'll be a great node that will not only enable some really competitive chips for Intel, but surely have customers queuing up to have their chips manufactured by the only real alternative to Taiwanese mega-foundry TSMC. Among other advantages and refinements of the 18A node, Intel is making the following claims: Up to 15% better performance per watt and 30% better chip density vs. the Intel 3 process node. The earliest available sub-2nm advanced node manufactured in North America, offering a resilient supply alternative for customers. Industry-first PowerVia backside-power delivery technology, improving density and cell utilization by 5 to 10 percent and reducing resistive power delivery droop, resulting in up to 4 percent ISO-power performance improvement and greatly reduced inherent resistance (IR) drop vs. front-side power designs. RibbonFET gate-all-around (GAA) transistor technology, enabling precise control of electrical current. RibbonFET allows further miniaturization of chip components while reducing power leakage, a critical concern for increasingly-dense chips. If 18A really does deliver on all that, it'll certainly be highly competitive with anything TSMC has to offer. Broadly, Intel 18A is thought to be less dense in terms of logic gates than TSMC's upcoming N2 node and more akin by that metric to the N3 node that TSMC has been banging out for about 18 months now. However, another key measure is SRAM density. SRAM cells are used to provide critical on-chip cache memory. It was thought until recently that 18A was at best on par with TSMC N3 for SRAM density. However, it's recently emerged that Intel 18A in fact offers pretty much exactly the same claimed SRAM density as TSMC N2. Meanwhile, TSMC is not planning to include backside power delivery until its own A16 node. Long story short, backside power relocates the power interconnects from the top of the chip to the underside of the silicon layer, thereby separating it from signal interconnects. This reduces interference and shortens the distance power has to travel, which improves efficiency and performance. As above, Intel 18A has backside power, which could be a big advantage over TSMC N2. Ultimately, we'll have to wait and see. But we absolutely have our fingers and toes crossed that 18A works out. The alternative could be very bad for Intel. Gelsinger did say, after all, that he had "bet the whole company on 18A." And the way the chip industry is going these days, "very bad for Intel" could quickly turn into even more expensive chips for the PC. We need as much competition in the industry as we can get. So, we generally agree with the sentiments an Intel engineer posted and then removed from Linkedin earlier this week, which basically boil down to not giving up on Intel just as it is about to turn things around with 18A. Best CPU for gaming: Top chips from Intel and gaming motherboard: The right graphics card: Your perfect pixel-pusher SSD for gaming: Get into the game first.
