CRO, that's a new one for me. You would think that with all the executives Intel has someone would be watching this stuff. It's interesting to contrast them with Tim Cook at Apple who has background in supply chain. His team seems to be able to accurately forecast demand for the most part (they have a few misses) and get the whole supply chain going. They lock in the TSMC wafers. If a critical supplier will be a bottleneck they advance them millions or billions of dollars to ensure they have infrastructure in place.
I was going to joke about COO - "Chief Officer Officer", the officer in charge of deciding how many officers there should be - then realised COO is already a thing. 🤦♂️ I guess someone thought COO sounded better than "Deputy CEO".
Note Intel is a vendor in this story; they're not the ones who have screwed up supply chains, it is their customers. Ultimately the stress goes all the way to the retailer, enterprise customer, and gets distributed by all the parties.
Apple frequently announces that they will stop production of this mac or that phone but there is usually something new and better and most customers feel good about it.
Dell sells whole laptop fleets to firms with 10,000+ employee(s) and in a case like that the customer wants predictability and they get it -- a Dell Latitude laptop is a quality product in the sense that the Toyota Corolla is. (Go for the gaming or 'desktop replacement' Dell brands and you might need to bribe a grad student to reflow the motherboard.)
Apple on the other hand has pricing power, if they are running short they can raise the price and people will still pay. If they are stacking up they can lower the price and still make a profit.
> Dell sells whole laptop fleets to firms with 10,000+ employee(s) and > in a case like that the customer wants predictability and they get it
My employer bought some entry-level fiexed workstations, a few years ago and the failure rate was the worst I'd ever personally witnessed! And it wasn't just one component, either. We had failed SSDs, hard drives, and motherboards! And this was across multiple batches ordered in consecutive months and multiple different office locations!
These machines weren't cheap, either. They cost north of $2200 each, after our corporate discount. And that's for a configuration that still used integrated graphics!
Prior to that, my experiences with their flagship 2U servers were positive, as well as their mid-range workstations. We even have several 10-year old Dell servers that have been operating continuously!
If Intel is up for some bold thinking, here it is.
If WiFi parts are short, build units without WiFi. It's time to show people what speed they can experience with 10G Ethernet, and how much speed other WiFi users can enjoy because you aren't stomping over their bandwidth. What is that? 5x performance improvement in one generation!
Display Panels are short? Make desktops. People are stuck at home now and won't need to lug laptops through the airport, shopping mall, monster truck stadium, wherever they go. DIY is the thing these days so go for liquid cooling installations that are connected to the water mains and have stylish bubblers like the liquid cooled crays of old.
It drives me nuts what a rip-off computer displays seem to be compared to TV sets. People should vote with their feet.
I found the graph really interesting; so Intel has its entire packaging located in three sites in Southeast Asia? I know that's usual and been that way for most (all?) major chip makers, but isn't that also many eggs in one basket? Not a single packaging site in the Americas or Europe means that they might be able to fab the CPUs and whatever, but that silicon is useless unless packaged so it can then be put into a system. If anyone knows how that affects current shortages, I'd like to know.
I imagine they probably considered packaging a commodity outside of EMIB and Foveros. So with razor thin margins there was probably a lot of pressure to go to the lowest cost countries, make the minimum capital investments, and cut all excess capacity. This extends to Intel’s suppliers as well. So that’s why I wouldn’t give Intel a pass, while they have been taking in billions they let their supply chain deteriorate. And as you said, all those new dies they invested in are useless without packaging.
Pretty sure this is a very accurate summary of what's going on there. Packaging has, until recently, been less "technical" and prestigious than the lithography side of things. I wonder if their new technologies will shift that perspective.
Dr Cultress I discovered an 'interesting'error' with respect to AMD.
Intel continues to increase our capacity by two fold over those years. We’re continuing to build more and more, amd we’re continuing to increase our investments in CapEx as you heard Pat talk about.
“Over the past year, Intel has worked with customers and partners across the technology industry, as well as governments and communities, to respond to the many impacts of COVID-19 on our medical systems, schools, and economies. regards https://www.getyourpetcertified.org/
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23 Comments
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flgt - Tuesday, May 4, 2021 - link
CRO, that's a new one for me. You would think that with all the executives Intel has someone would be watching this stuff. It's interesting to contrast them with Tim Cook at Apple who has background in supply chain. His team seems to be able to accurately forecast demand for the most part (they have a few misses) and get the whole supply chain going. They lock in the TSMC wafers. If a critical supplier will be a bottleneck they advance them millions or billions of dollars to ensure they have infrastructure in place.Matthias B V - Tuesday, May 4, 2021 - link
Yes also first time heard if this. Maybe "revenue" would be better without all those officers.What's next: CBO - Chief Breakfast Officer? We often joked during studies that Breakfast Director would be the perfect job. Maybe Intel makes it work!
Spunjji - Friday, May 7, 2021 - link
I was going to joke about COO - "Chief Officer Officer", the officer in charge of deciding how many officers there should be - then realised COO is already a thing. 🤦♂️ I guess someone thought COO sounded better than "Deputy CEO".PaulHoule - Tuesday, May 4, 2021 - link
Note Intel is a vendor in this story; they're not the ones who have screwed up supply chains, it is their customers. Ultimately the stress goes all the way to the retailer, enterprise customer, and gets distributed by all the parties.Apple frequently announces that they will stop production of this mac or that phone but there is usually something new and better and most customers feel good about it.
Dell sells whole laptop fleets to firms with 10,000+ employee(s) and in a case like that the customer wants predictability and they get it -- a Dell Latitude laptop is a quality product in the sense that the Toyota Corolla is. (Go for the gaming or 'desktop replacement' Dell brands and you might need to bribe a grad student to reflow the motherboard.)
Apple on the other hand has pricing power, if they are running short they can raise the price and people will still pay. If they are stacking up they can lower the price and still make a profit.
mode_13h - Sunday, May 9, 2021 - link
> Dell sells whole laptop fleets to firms with 10,000+ employee(s) and> in a case like that the customer wants predictability and they get it
My employer bought some entry-level fiexed workstations, a few years ago and the failure rate was the worst I'd ever personally witnessed! And it wasn't just one component, either. We had failed SSDs, hard drives, and motherboards! And this was across multiple batches ordered in consecutive months and multiple different office locations!
These machines weren't cheap, either. They cost north of $2200 each, after our corporate discount. And that's for a configuration that still used integrated graphics!
Prior to that, my experiences with their flagship 2U servers were positive, as well as their mid-range workstations. We even have several 10-year old Dell servers that have been operating continuously!
mode_13h - Sunday, May 9, 2021 - link
> fiexed workstationsfixed workstations, I mean. They were "Precision Tower 3620", specifically.
Hulk - Tuesday, May 4, 2021 - link
Okay I get it, they have sand. Thanks for letting us know.PaulHoule - Tuesday, May 4, 2021 - link
If Intel is up for some bold thinking, here it is.If WiFi parts are short, build units without WiFi. It's time to show people what speed they can experience with 10G Ethernet, and how much speed other WiFi users can enjoy because you aren't stomping over their bandwidth. What is that? 5x performance improvement in one generation!
Display Panels are short? Make desktops. People are stuck at home now and won't need to lug laptops through the airport, shopping mall, monster truck stadium, wherever they go. DIY is the thing these days so go for liquid cooling installations that are connected to the water mains and have stylish bubblers like the liquid cooled crays of old.
It drives me nuts what a rip-off computer displays seem to be compared to TV sets. People should vote with their feet.
RSAUser - Thursday, May 6, 2021 - link
This is not Intel, this is its partners that deliver the finished products like laptops and pre-builts.YB1064 - Tuesday, May 4, 2021 - link
The "CRO"'s comments...what a bunch of bullshit. Still stuck on 14nm+++^n.biostud - Tuesday, May 4, 2021 - link
Obviously, as nobody crave Intel Cpu's on 14++++eastcoast_pete - Tuesday, May 4, 2021 - link
I found the graph really interesting; so Intel has its entire packaging located in three sites in Southeast Asia? I know that's usual and been that way for most (all?) major chip makers, but isn't that also many eggs in one basket? Not a single packaging site in the Americas or Europe means that they might be able to fab the CPUs and whatever, but that silicon is useless unless packaged so it can then be put into a system. If anyone knows how that affects current shortages, I'd like to know.flgt - Tuesday, May 4, 2021 - link
I imagine they probably considered packaging a commodity outside of EMIB and Foveros. So with razor thin margins there was probably a lot of pressure to go to the lowest cost countries, make the minimum capital investments, and cut all excess capacity. This extends to Intel’s suppliers as well. So that’s why I wouldn’t give Intel a pass, while they have been taking in billions they let their supply chain deteriorate. And as you said, all those new dies they invested in are useless without packaging.Spunjji - Friday, May 7, 2021 - link
Pretty sure this is a very accurate summary of what's going on there. Packaging has, until recently, been less "technical" and prestigious than the lithography side of things. I wonder if their new technologies will shift that perspective.Smell This - Tuesday, May 4, 2021 - link
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shabby - Tuesday, May 4, 2021 - link
Dreams... delivering dreams.m53 - Tuesday, May 4, 2021 - link
Too many trolling posts on what used to be a serious tech siteTheinsanegamerN - Wednesday, May 5, 2021 - link
Too many whining posts on wha tused to be a serious tech site.Spunjji - Friday, May 7, 2021 - link
Too many meta posts on what used to be a serious tech site 😤Khyron43 - Wednesday, May 5, 2021 - link
Dr Cultress I discovered an 'interesting'error' with respect to AMD.Intel continues to increase our capacity by two fold over those years. We’re continuing to build more and more, amd we’re continuing to increase our investments in CapEx as you heard Pat talk about.
kanewilliamson011 - Wednesday, May 5, 2021 - link
“Over the past year, Intel has worked with customers and partners across the technology industry, as well as governments and communities, to respond to the many impacts of COVID-19 on our medical systems, schools, and economies. regards https://www.getyourpetcertified.org/mode_13h - Thursday, May 6, 2021 - link
Spammer.zodiacfml - Thursday, May 6, 2021 - link
Almost everything tech related is crazy right now. There must be an industry hurting, travel/tourism.