In a letter to staff, Gelsinger called his cunning plan Intel’s new integrated device manufacturing strategy (IDM 2.0), the goal of which is to “regain unquestioned technology leadership, manufacturing scale and long-term growth”.
He wants to lean on Intel Foundry Services (IFS) and compete directly with riff-raff like TSMC and make semiconductors designed by third-parties.
Chipzilla has slipped down the pecking order in the fields of both manufacturing and design and is now more pecked than pecking.
When Gelsinger came back in early 2021 things started to be coming back to life and flowers were seen Blossoming where they had not for some time. However the last couple of months have been hell on earth and show that Intel is not ready for the big time yet.
The company launched it’s next-generation line of server processors, codenamed Sapphire Rapids which were more delayed than the second coming of Christ and then its GPU launch was not the box of fluffy ducks it hoped.
In July, Intel published a dismal quarterly earnings report, the lowlight of which was a 22 per cent drop in revenue year-on-year. Gelsinger took to Twitter to issue a public apology: “This quarter’s results were below the standards we have set for the company and our shareholders. We must and will do better,” he wrote.
Gelsinger thinks that expanding Intel’s foundry division and take it away from the internal design team and other business units will establish consistent processes, systems and guardrails between our business unit, design and manufacturing teams.
“This will allow us to identify and address structural inefficiencies that exist in our current model by driving accountability and costs back to decision-makers in real time. It will also put Intel’s product groups on a similar footing as external Intel Foundry Services customers and vice versa,” he added.
“We will also create a foundry accounting model that encompasses manufacturing, technology development and Intel Foundry Services. This will give us more transparency into our financial execution and will allow us to fully benchmark and drive ourselves to best-in-class foundry performance.”
Separately, Intel has established a new IDM 2.0 Acceleration Office (which uses the ancient greek magical name IAO), led by Stuart Pann, SVP of Corporate Planning. IAO will apparently bring the new-look foundry model described by Gelsinger to life.
Gelsinger promised regular updates on the progress of these projects and told staff that now is the time to “take action as One Intel to unleash IDM 2.0’s full potential.”
