Why Intel’s foundry tech couldn’t save its cellular enterprise

Intel’s process technology management couldn’t keep the enterprise’s cell department as it wasn’t designed to accomplish that. cellphone and tablet OEMs wanted gadgets with integrated LTE radios; Intel didn’t have them. Even the SoFIA partnership with TSMC in no way got here to marketplace, seemingly due to the fact Intel couldn’t comfy enough extent to kickstart production.

Intel’s 14nm issues delayed its next-technology pill processors from 2014 to 2015. Its 10nm node, once expected to comfortable extensive economies of scale over TSMC, has been driven to 2017 as nicely. I don’t suppose these delays played a huge role in Intel’s decision to leave the cellular market, but they'll have inspired it. In 2012, Intel nevertheless anticipated to be on 10nm by 2016 with EUV (extreme ultraviolet lithography) ramping in the direction of full manufacturing. The now-canceled 450mm wafers weren’t predicted in-market pretty this quickly, however Chipzilla anticipated to understand giant cost financial savings from transferring to the bigger wafers within the 2018 to 2020 time frame — cost financial savings that could’ve similarly improved its standing towards Samsung, TSMC, and GlobalFoundries.

If Intel had began reorienting towards Atom whilst it launched the chip in 2008, it'd’ve weathered those delays and cancellations with out a lot trouble. Failing to accomplish that left its beleaguered cell enterprise dealing with higher-than-expected prices and minimal revenue.

Intel didn’t lose the mobile marketplace due to the fact Atom’s performance and power consumption didn’t compete with ARM; research and assessment showed that Atom was capable of matching ARM performance in a couple of marketplace segments. It lost the cellular market because it didn’t make the modifications that would have allowed it to compete on fee with products synthetic at TSMC and Samsung. The exacting regulations and unique layouts that drove Intel to the pinnacle of one market could not be easily tailored to others, and Intel turned into unwilling to threat its position at the pinnacle of the traditional x86 marketplace for a unstable payoff in cell. There’s no proof that retaining XScale or developing ARM merchandise might have modified that — if some thing, the ARM division would’ve been beneath even extra strain to ensure it by no means have become a danger to the x86 enterprise.