The Fall of Intel

To demonstrate that the lack of EUV was not the sole reason they fell behind TSMC. They were having other manufacturing problems beyond and predating EUV and according to your link may in fact helped cause some of the delay in adopting EUV.
In that case, shouldn't it have read "Intel's struggles with 10 nm began **before** or **around** 2014"? I still don't understand why it's relevant that "Intel's struggles with 10nm began after 2014".

And from what I understand, TSMC used EUV for their 7 nm process, which is approximately equivalent to Intel's 10 nm. If so, that suggests EUV would have faciliated Intel's 10 nm, and thus Intel's struggles with 10 nm aren't inconsistent with the idea that the lack of EUV hampered them, no? I.e., irrespective of whether their original attempt at 10 nm was in bad shape, maybe if they'd switched to an EUV-based approach to 10 nm, they could have achieved a successful 10 nm process, as TMSC was able to do their equivalent (7 nm) node.

I'm not disagreeing with the substance of what you wrote, since I don't know what the substance (i.e., the specifics of Intel's struggles) is supposed to be. I'm just not following the logic. Then again, I am easily confused ;).
 
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In that case, shouldn't it have read "Intel's struggles with 10 nm began **before** 2014"? That's part of what confused me.
The reason I said 2014 is that was Intel's deployment of their last successful new node, 14nm. While we don't know what was happening internally at that point, externally everything looked fine - it wasn't until 2016 when Intel began missing publicly declared deadlines for 10nm that publicly issues began to be known. Nodes typically take 3-5 years to develop, but I don't know when Intel first began to realize their node was troubled or when the key decisions that caused the problems were made.
And from what I understand, TSMC used EUV for their 7 nm process, which is approximately equivalent to Intel's 10 nm. If so, that suggests EUV would have faciliated 10 nm, and thus Intel's struggles with 10 nm aren't inconsistent with the idea that the lack of EUV hampered Intel, no?
TSMC used EUV for 7nm+. The original TSMC N7 didn't use EUV, it was a normal finfet node (I've seen reference that TSMC had an internal only 10nm EUV but N7+ was their first commercial EUV).

From what I understand part of what caused the problem for Intel was that Intel wanted to use an experimental cobalt interconnect layer and combine it with more complex lithography and basically failed to combine them and it was too late to reverse course by the time they realized it (Intel 4 which had been their 7nm node dropped the cobalt). Basically had Intel gone with a more conservative 10nm, they could have had a working, competitive node to TSMC all the way through finfet, their non-EUV finfet wouldn't have been so far behind TSMC's initial EUV nodes, and they might've made the transition to EUV faster as well.

And of course Intel also suffered from a host of design problems that were only tangentially related to their manufacturing issues that I mentioned in my initial post - the iPhone was 2008 and it's not like Nvidia has always used the latest and greatest node for their AI products (Blackwell being a recent case in point). And then there's Intel's bad bet on Xeon Phi versus using GPUs (to be fair Xeon Phi was a cool idea it just didn't work out for multiple reasons).

EUV and manufacturing in general were a huge part of their troubles, don't get me wrong, but overall Intel's fall from kinghood was multifactorial. A lot of things went wrong for them all around the same time.

EDIT: I see that your edited your post while I was typing but I think managed to address your questions, if I didn't let me know, although you've probably hit the extent of my knowledge on this topic, so if you have more questions someone more versed like @Cmaier or @mr_roboto or others here would probably be better suited to reply.
 
The reason I said 2014 is that was Intel's deployment of their last successful new node, 14nm. While we don't know what was happening internally at that point, externally everything looked fine - it wasn't until 2016 when Intel began missing publicly declared deadlines for 10nm that publicly issues began to be known. Nodes typically take 3-5 years to develop, but I don't know when Intel first began to realize their node was troubled or when the key decisions that caused the problems were made.

TSMC used EUV for 7nm+. The original TSMC N7 didn't use EUV, it was a normal finfet node (I've seen reference that TSMC had an internal only 10nm EUV but N7+ was their first commercial EUV).

From what I understand part of what caused the problem for Intel was that Intel wanted to use an experimental cobalt interconnect layer and combine it with more complex lithography and basically failed to combine them and it was too late to reverse course by the time they realized it (Intel 4 which had been their 7nm node dropped the cobalt). Basically had Intel gone with a more conservative 10nm, they could have had a working, competitive node to TSMC all the way through finfet, their non-EUV finfet wouldn't have been so far behind TSMC's initial EUV nodes, and they might've made the transition to EUV faster as well.

And of course Intel also suffered from a host of design problems that were only tangentially related to their manufacturing issues that I mentioned in my initial post - the iPhone was 2008 and it's not like Nvidia has always used the latest and greatest node for their AI products (Blackwell being a recent case in point). And then there's Intel's bad bet on Xeon Phi versus using GPUs (to be fair Xeon Phi was a cool idea it just didn't work out for multiple reasons).

EUV and manufacturing in general were a huge part of their troubles, don't get me wrong, but overall Intel's fall from kinghood was multifactorial. A lot of things went wrong for them all around the same time.

EDIT: I see that your edited your post while I was typing but I think managed to address your questions, if I didn't let me know, although you've probably hit the extent of my knowledge on this topic, so if you have more questions someone more versed like @Cmaier or @mr_roboto or others here would probably be better suited to reply.
Thanks, that helps to clear things up!

Any thoughts on Intel's chances of getting back on track? This says they acquired ASML's entire 2024 production of their latest high numerical aperture EUV machines (another article indicates they were ordered in 2022), but I don't know how long it will take before they are able to use them for commerical production. I believe this makes Intel the first to acquire this new generation of machines.
 
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Thanks, that helps to clear things up!

Any thoughts on Intel's chances of getting back on track? This says they ordered ASML's entire 2024 production of their latest high-aperture EUV machines, but I don't know who long it will take before they are able to use them for commerical production.
I don't know. I mean I would say in the short term it more depends on how the next couple of nodes pan out and how successfully they are able to fab 3rd party chips and how their own designs go and what happens with their competitors in both design and fabrication (as far as fabs go it's not like Samsung is doing fantastically either). They have a lot of ground to make up and I just don't know. High NA stuff is still years away and they've got there first.

I should also add that 10nm wasn't fully a failure they did produce mobile chips on it successfully after all, but even then I'm not sure about what those could've been you know? - i.e. did the node troubles impact them too? or just the desktop/servers? I mean at least I think it delayed them, but beyond that I don't know.
 

Trump wants TSMC to take over Intel? (At least the manufacturing biz, though it sounds like more than that)
Maybe not:


Then again Trump vacillates so hard who knows?
 

TSMC gets fans, and Broadcom the rest?

Eww. (Broadcom is owned by Avago)

Hmmm … this assumes Broadcom wants to continue x86 design in particular. Maybe?
 

Possible delay in Panther Lake because 18A yields not yet production ready.
 

Possible delay in Panther Lake because 18A yields not yet production ready.
Further possible evidence of yield problems with Intel 18A:


I wouldn't say any of this is definite, but the tea leaves are not great.
 
The lack of EUV was part of it, but Intel's struggles with 10nm began after 2014 while the first real commercial EUV node from TSMC was 2019 and even by then people were joking about 14nm+++. Intel I think was supposed to release 10nm around 2016, which obviously didn't happen. So with respect to manufacturing Intel not adopting EUV faster certainly hurt (I think Intel 4 in 2023 was their first), but other factors did as well.

But Intel had other issues beyond manufacturing. There was missing the mobile phone market which happened before 2014 and more recently a struggle to compete in selling AI chips again which is not necessarily tied to their fabrication woes.
One of the most dishonest - though I don't think uniformly with that intent so much as ignorant - retcons of Intel is that the fall was mostly about fabrication and EUV. That was the biggest dip they've ever had and made various other issues more salient, yes, particularly given AMD's foray into the market and Apple's in 2020.

But Intel's design unit is a mess, their corporate leadership and organization essentially shunted diversification multiple times over from mobile to GPUs and AI or actively harmed new acquisitions. Further their design even in their core market was increasingly sloppy and thus the gaps just grew and grew with competitors of a similar disposition (AMD) or others with better talent/IP/scale (as we now see with Arm/QC vs Intel comparisons - or even the fact that it took Apple half a decade to get their modem team up to relative par).

I'm a broken record about this but it's just remarkably obvious if you look through their products, the metrics on power/IPC/performance/area, the trends, etc. Now you don't even have to do that. Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake are on TSMC N3 and multiple headlines and reviews point out it was hardly a panacea, almost alarmingly far from that.
 
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