The previous couple of weeks have been a rocky trip for Intel and its CEO Pat Gelsinger. The corporate posted brutal year-end earnings that shocked the semiconductor business. This resulted in Intel asserting it was slicing government salaries and lowering incentives corresponding to 401K matching for all workers. Gelsinger himself took a 25% pay reduce as properly. On prime of that dangerous information avalanche got here an excellent worse prediction from sources in Taiwan. A report from DigiTimes mentioned Intel was delaying its TSMC order of 3nm tiles destined for its fifteenth era Arrow Lake structure. The delay would bump its arrival into 2025 and mark a serious stumble for Intel. Now its CEO has rebuked these claims in no unsure phrases, saying they’re “patently false.”
Intel’s CEO made the feedback in a Capital Allocation Replace convention name this week with analysts. Tom’s {Hardware} captured highlights, together with Intel saying it was slashing its quarterly dividend by two-thirds. It will enable the corporate to save lots of as much as $3 billion in 2023. On the decision, Gelsinger additionally addressed the latest report about delays for Arrow Lake, the structure that may come after Meteor Lake, which is due in 2023. Arrow Lake is scheduled to comply with in 2024; the DigiTimes report mentioned it was being pushed to 2025.
Intel will transition from monolithic to tile-based designs beginning in 2023 with Meteor Lake. (Picture: Intel)
“I’m considerably amazed by a few of these rumor mill discussions that come out,” mentioned Gelsinger. “You would possibly discover there have been related ones on Intel 4 just a few months in the past and in addition with a few of our different TSMC applications, which have been patently false on the time as properly.”
As somebody who has written a dozen or so articles about rumored delays at Intel, that is the primary time we are able to recall him commenting particularly. It’s attainable this specific rumor was too egregious for him to remain quiet. It’s additionally attainable he felt the necessity to get out in entrance of this one as a result of latest maelstrom.
“The 3nm applications are on observe, each with TSMC in addition to our inner Intel 3 applications Granite Rapids and Sierra Forest specifically,” mentioned Gelsinger. Intel 3 is a refined model of its Intel 4 structure, previously often called 5nm. That is additionally the primary time we are able to recall Pat commenting on something associated to its relationship with TSMC. That partnership has additionally been the supply of rumored delays as properly.
For instance, it was previously speculated Intel was dropping the TSMC 3nm iGPU tile from Meteor Lake. It was assumed the corporate would go along with a 5nm half as a substitute. With the information this week that Apple had purchased all of TSMC’s preliminary 3nm wafers, it’ll be fascinating to see what leads to Meteor Lake. It’s attainable Intel may use the refined N3E model of TSMC’s 3nm node for Meteor Lake in late 2023. On this identical name, Gelsinger affirmed Meteor Lake was nonetheless on schedule.
Gelsinger concluded by saying that Intel’s execution will put all of the rumors to relaxation. “You recognize, these rumors, like many others, shall be confirmed by our execution to be firmly false,” he mentioned. As at all times, we should wait and see if that’s true. One thing tells your humble writer we shall be reexamining these feedback within the not-too-distant future.
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