News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Intel doesn't know how to be a foundry," Tim Cook reportedly told TSMC's CEO. Parent comment

Re:Intel doesn't know how to be a foundry," Tim Cook reporte... by michaeljx on Wednesday January 29, 2025 @01:44PM (#42869296)
interesting perspective. Care to elaborate a bit more? Where you in the design department? Why did they put up chinese walls? Was it to enable the foundry to have other customers other than Intel designs? Why did you have similar type of equipment? Were you also manufacturing chipsets? If so, why didn't they expand your division to become a foundry?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Intel doesn't know how to be a foundry," Tim Cook reporte... by scrlk on Wednesday January 29, 2025 @01:58PM (#42869471)
There's a good video from Asianometry (Lessons from Intel's First Foundry): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Y9LWYmVQu0

If you're an Intel foundry customer, you don't want your design or IP leaking across to Intel's product team, who might be a competitor.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Intel doesn't know how to be a foundry," Tim Cook reporte... by petra on Wednesday January 29, 2025 @03:10PM (#42870478)
But the IP is already "compiled", or if you want to isolate even further, separate just the mask making process. What could be learned from masks?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Intel doesn't know how to be a foundry," Tim Cook reporte... by B1FF_PSUVM on Wednesday January 29, 2025 @03:23PM (#42870655)
> What could be learned from masks

That's like asking what could you learn from building plans ...

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Intel doesn't know how to be a foundry," Tim Cook reporte... by georgeburdell on Wednesday January 29, 2025 @02:44PM (#42870135)
I was in a fab module. The firewall part makes sense to not cross pollinate IP internally vs. externally, but it was taken to the extreme and management moved zero internal employees over to external so it was Intel’s tools and recipes but not the talent who knows all the tribal stuff.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Intel doesn't know how to be a foundry," Tim Cook reporte... by ethbr1 on Wednesday January 29, 2025 @03:39PM (#42870857)
> but not the talent who knows all the tribal stuff

Tribal knowledge doesn't appear on management org charts or in human resource titles.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Intel doesn't know how to be a foundry," Tim Cook reporte... by thetopher on Wednesday January 29, 2025 @02:14PM (#42869701)
Sounds like they were following some advice from “The Innovator’s Dilemma” by separating the business groups.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Intel doesn't know how to be a foundry," Tim Cook reporte... by nradov on Wednesday January 29, 2025 @04:17PM (#42871277)
This wasn't something with the potential to become a disruptive innovation, as described in that book. Foundries are an established business model.
[ Parent | on HN ]