Power

Intel outside: Manufacturing delays hit the chip company once again

For a long period of time, Intel was the most advanced chip manufacturing company on the planet. Those days are over, after the company announced Thursday that it won't be able to ship chips using state-of-the-art technology until late next year.

Intel headquarters

AMD, as well as companies building chips around the Arm instruction set — like Apple and AWS — will enjoy years during which they offer the most powerful and power efficient chips on the market.

Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Intel is in trouble.

The next generation of the iconic company's once-vaunted chip-manufacturing technology will be delayed, again, following extended delays to the rollout of its current chip-manufacturing technology. Intel is attempting to build next-generation chips using a 7-nanometer processing technology, a feat that most of its rivals in the chip-making game have achieved, but CEO Bob Swan said in Intel's second-quarter earnings release Thursday that customers should not expect those chips until late 2022 at the earliest.

This means AMD, as well as companies building chips around the Arm instruction set — like Apple and AWS — will enjoy years during which they offer the most powerful and power efficient chips on the market. AMD's second-generation Epyc server chips, built on a 7-nanometer manufacturing process, have been available for almost a year, and AWS' head-turning Graviton chips were also built on a 7-nanometer process.

For context, a single human hair is around 80,000 nanometers wide. Intel's 7-nanometer problem is that it isn't seeing the yields it would expect from a normal manufacturing process, or the number of good, working chips that can be cut from a silicon wafer.

The smaller the manufacturing process, the more transistors you can fit on an expensive piece of silicon real estate, which makes for a more powerful chip. Back in the 1960s, Intel co-founder Gordon Moore advanced a dictum that would come to be known as Moore's law: that the number of transistors that could possibly fit on a silicon die of a given size would double roughly every 18 to 24 months.

Amazingly, Intel made that proclamation come true for more than 40 years, but the challenges of building structures that approach the size of individual atoms have proven very difficult for the company over the back half of the last decade. The years during which Intel dictated silicon manufacturing trends would appear to be over.

It's now easier to understand why Apple would be willing to bet on Arm chips for the Mac; a strategically important customer like Apple has years of visibility into Intel's road maps. Taiwan's TSMC, a major supplier to many chip designers, has been shipping 7-nanometer Arm chips for quite some time and is getting ready to start making chips based on a 5-nanometer manufacturing process, which Intel won't duplicate for a very long time.

Swan said during a call with investors that Intel would start looking at using other manufacturing companies to build its own chip designs, a once unthinkable suggestion for a senior Intel executive to make.

Thanks to its monopoly position in both PC and server processors, however, Intel recorded second-quarter revenue of $19.7 billion, up 20% compared to last year. Investors, who no longer hear Intel talk about Moore's law in every presentation for some reason, sent its stock down 10% in after-hours trading.

Updated: This posted was updated at 5:30 p.m. PT to include more information from the earnings call.

 Tom Krazit

Tom Krazit ( @tomkrazit) is Protocol's enterprise editor, covering cloud computing and enterprise technology out of the Pacific Northwest. He has written and edited stories about the technology industry for almost two decades for publications such as IDG, CNET, paidContent, and GeekWire, and served as executive editor of Gigaom and Structure.

intel chips
Protocol | Workplace

Productivity apps can’t stop making money

ClickUp had one of the biggest Series C funding rounds ever. Here's how it matches up to the other productivity unicorns.

ClickUp made $400 million in its series C funding round.

Photo: ClickUp

Productivity platform ClickUp announced a milestone today. The company raised $400 million, which is one of the biggest series C funding rounds in the workplace productivity market ever. The round, led by Andreessen Horowitz and Tiger Global, put the private company at a $4 billion valuation post-money.

In case it's not clear: This is a massive amount of money. It shows how hot the productivity space is right now, with some predicting the market size could reach almost $120 billion by 2028. In a world of hybrid workers, all-in-one tool platforms are all the rage among both startups and productivity stalwarts. Companies everywhere want to escape tool overwhelm, where work is spread across dozens of apps.

Keep Reading Show less
Lizzy Lawrence

Lizzy Lawrence ( @LizzyLaw_) is a reporter at Protocol, covering tools and productivity in the workplace. She's a recent graduate of the University of Michigan, where she studied sociology and international studies. She served as editor in chief of The Michigan Daily, her school's independent newspaper. She's based in D.C., and can be reached at llawrence@protocol.com.

productivity
sponsored content
Sponsored Content

Four processes to keep you innovating through change

If you've ever tried to pick up a new fitness routine like running, chances are you may have fallen into the "motivation vs. habit" trap once or twice. You go for a run when the sun is shining, only to quickly fall off the wagon when the weather turns sour.

Similarly, for many businesses, 2020 acted as the storm cloud that disrupted their plans for innovation. With leaders busy grappling with the pandemic, innovation frequently got pushed to the backburner. In fact, according to McKinsey, the majority of organizations shifted their focus mainly to maintaining business continuity throughout the pandemic.

Keep Reading Show less
Gaurav Kataria
Group Product Manager, Trello at Atlassian
sponsored content sponsored
google

Alphabet wants SCOTUS to decide if old breaches require SEC disclosure

And makes a pretty bold legal argument.

The Supreme Court of the United States
Photo: Angel Xavier Viera-Vargas

If a company resolved a data breach in the past, does it need to disclose the potential negative fallout of that breach as a risk to investors later on? In a new petition asking the Supreme Court to take up the question, Alphabet is arguing emphatically: no. And it's using the ol' "the past is history, tomorrow's a mystery" defense.

Keep Reading Show less
Issie Lapowsky

Issie Lapowsky ( @issielapowsky) is Protocol's chief correspondent, covering the intersection of technology, politics, and national affairs. She also oversees Protocol's fellowship program. Previously, she was a senior writer at Wired, where she covered the 2016 election and the Facebook beat in its aftermath. Prior to that, Issie worked as a staff writer for Inc. magazine, writing about small business and entrepreneurship. She has also worked as an on-air contributor for CBS News and taught a graduate-level course at New York University's Center for Publishing on how tech giants have affected publishing.

alphabet scotus google
facebook papers
Protocol | Workplace

Facebook’s hiring crisis: Engineers are turning down offers

"All of you are now starting to experience that major imbalance between supply and demand — and it doesn't feel good," a recruiting leader wrote in an internal memo.

Here are all the Facebook Papers stories
Image: Getty Images, Protocol

Facebook cannot find enough candidates to meet engineering demand, especially in the Bay Area, and has struggled and failed to meet early 2021 recruiting goals, according to a detailed internal memo outlining recruitment strategy and hiring pains.

The company also failed to meet hiring goals in 2019, which frustrated CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and it built an ad-hoc team of leaders to create an emergency plan to address the painful shortage, according to disclosures made to the Securities and Exchange Commission and provided to Congress in redacted form by Frances Haugen's legal counsel. A consortium of news organizations, including Protocol, has reviewed the redacted versions received by Congress.

Keep Reading Show less
Anna Kramer

Anna Kramer is a reporter at Protocol (Twitter: @ anna_c_kramer, email: akramer@protocol.com), where she writes about labor and workplace issues. Prior to joining the team, she covered tech and small business for the San Francisco Chronicle and privacy for Bloomberg Law. She is a recent graduate of Brown University, where she studied International Relations and Arabic and wrote her senior thesis about surveillance tools and technological development in the Middle East.

facebook facebook papers hiring recruiting
theranos trial

Theranos trial reveals DeVos family invested $100 million

The family committed "on the spot" to double its investment, an investment adviser said. Meanwhile, the jury lost another two members, with two alternates left.

Betsy DeVos' family invested $100 million in Theranos, an investment adviser said.

Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images

Lisa Peterson, a wealth manager for the DeVos family, testified in Elizabeth Holmes's criminal fraud trial Tuesday, as prosecutors continued to highlight allegations about how the Theranos CEO courted investors in the once-high-flying blood-testing startup.

An email presented by the defense revealed that the family committed to doubling their investment in Theranos to $100 million "on the spot" during a 2014 visit to company headquarters.

Keep Reading Show less
Michelle Ma
Michelle Ma (@himichellema) is a reporter at Protocol, where she writes about management, leadership and workplace issues in tech. Previously, she was a news editor of live journalism and special coverage for The Wall Street Journal. Prior to that, she worked as a staff writer at Wirecutter. She can be reached at mma@protocol.com.
elizabeth holmes theranos trial theranos trial
Latest Stories