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Former Intel chief Pat Gelsinger: ‘I’ve been called here for a purpose’

IIRC, John Pitzer again reiterated that they expect to break even exiting 2027 at an investor conference recently on operating profit basis, only caveat being they will see expenses raise if they land a 14A customer (meaning they need to re-hire a bunch of people they fired to run the Ohio fabs leading to increase in OpEx again)

View attachment 3925

If you are referring to the 18A yield comments, he said yield is at what they expect it to be for a node on ramp up process. It will be high enough to drive margins end of 2026 and industry standard level margins in 2027. I don't see a smoking gun in that comment without knowing appropriate level of margin he is talking about here. Intel target operating profit for IFS was 30-40% back in 2023, may be he is referring to that for 18A. Even if we take a pessimistic pov, he thinks they can drive "appropriate level of margin" in 2027. Industry standard is probably referring to TSMC's OM of 50% recently.
View attachment 3926
And everyone conveniently forget about this comment about 18A yields in the same ER call. 18A yield is where they want them to be at this point of time.
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I agree with you on this. That is why I said by 2030. Global Foundry had negative gross margin between 2018 to 2020 and as they have increased topline, economies of scale kicked in and now they are profitable by Gross Profit & Operating Profit basis. There is no reason to think Intel can't achieve that too. With USG onboard and LBT driving operating efficiency, slowly and surely, more customers will signup for IFS and they will become profitable by Gross profit basis first, then operating profit & free cash flow positive (these usually correlates) and then GAAP net income basis.
The upcoming event:
 
I am just telling you they will not break even in 2027. Fab 52 isnt even fully loaded at the end of 2026. Fab62 is not tooled out in 2026.

Intel does not have plans to run anything in Ohio at this point.

yields may or may not be an issue. wafer cost on 18A and 14A is believed to be an issue
The text said they would break even 'exiting 2027' 'by run rate'. So even at the very end of 2027 they won't be operating profitably (say on a weekly or monthly basis)?

(Challenging lightly because I recall analysts saying Intel 10nm would never be profitable, and Intel 7 has carried the company for years now)
 
The text said they would break even 'exiting 2027' 'by run rate'. So even at the very end of 2027 they won't be operating profitably (say on a weekly or monthly basis)?

(Challenging lightly because I recall analysts saying Intel 10nm would never be profitable, and Intel 7 has carried the company for years now)
Intel 7 is still carrying the company but it's a bad node in terms of Intel as a whole it was not a cost effective node why do you think IFS has such a negative gross margin
 
Intel 7 is still carrying the company but it's a bad node in terms of Intel as a whole it was not a cost effective node why do you think IFS has such a negative gross margin
In 2022, when most of Intel's wafer volume was Intel 7, Intel Foundry had ~0% Gross Margin indicating foundry was selling Intel 7 wafers at cost to Products team. Only in 2023 and onwards foundry margin turned negative. I think that is due to early ramp of Intel 4/3 nodes (startup costs) and outsourcing to TSMC for MTL, ARL & LNL that pushed the margins negative. So it's a combination of those things.

May be I should have said the most important thing LBT could do for IFS is to accelerate 14A and make Intel products use IFS, keep outsourcing to minimum and use architectural improvements to compete with AMD+TSMC combo.

I am really disappointed by MJH's move to change PG's plan of keeping >80% of NVL on 18A/A-P. I think that is going to have negative effect on IFS in 2027 & 2028 (similar to 2023 & 2024 but less in magnitude - although 14A startup cost around that time may amplify that too ).
 
Fab 52 isnt even fully loaded at the end of 2026. Fab62 is not tooled out in 2026.
By my napkin math estimation is Fab 52 will be utilized 30-40% only in 2026 (assuming Fab 52 = 20kwspm). So, I agree with you on that (my assumption is 20Mu of Panther Lake, 400ku of CWF, 100ku of DMR being shipped in 2026 & no nova lake shipments - very rough math only). But also, my rough math shows, Fab 52 utilization should be around 70-80% in 2027 (60Mu of PTL, 600ku of CWF & 1.5Mu of DMR alone) I think another 30Mu of 18A based Nova lake (both notebook & desktop representing the SoC & iGPU tile) should be added to that. That should fill Fab 52 and spillover to Fab 62 by end of 2027 (Capex would be raised in 2027 to tool Fab 62 too).

Fab 62 will not be required until end of 2027 per my expectation unless external customer orders ramp up in early 2027. But that is okay, the Fab 62 shell costs about $8B? if we assume a straight line 30yr amortization schedule, impact on P&L is $270 million per year (that's peanut to make any impact on Intel's P&L for 2026).

Just my rough math, so margin of error will be very high (or I could be plainly wrong too...take it with boat load of salt).
 
As IBM and Samsung and Global found out, the goal is not be just be a leader in process node... you have to be profitable. 202618A finances will give us a peek at the future of IFS.

I agree but times have changed and US based manufacturing is a top priority. Intel 18A is the only leading edge node in production in the US today and TSMC N2 and Samsung 2nm are a couple of years away. That counts for a lot in my book.
 
By my napkin math estimation is Fab 52 will be utilized 30-40% only in 2026 (assuming Fab 52 = 20kwspm). So, I agree with you on that (my assumption is 20Mu of Panther Lake, 400ku of CWF, 100ku of DMR being shipped in 2026 & no nova lake shipments - very rough math only). But also, my rough math shows, Fab 52 utilization should be around 70-80% in 2027 (60Mu of PTL, 600ku of CWF & 1.5Mu of DMR alone) I think another 30Mu of 18A based Nova lake (both notebook & desktop representing the SoC & iGPU tile) should be added to that. That should fill Fab 52 and spillover to Fab 62 by end of 2027 (Capex would be raised in 2027 to tool Fab 62 too).

Fab 62 will not be required until end of 2027 per my expectation unless external customer orders ramp up in early 2027. But that is okay, the Fab 62 shell costs about $8B? if we assume a straight line 30yr amortization schedule, impact on P&L is $270 million per year (that's peanut to make any impact on Intel's P&L for 2026).

Just my rough math, so margin of error will be very high (or I could be plainly wrong too...take it with boat load of salt).
great numbers thanks!!
 
Pat sighting:

IMG_0542.jpg
 
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