While today second quarter earnings report from Intel represented a high-water mark for the company amid booming sales and revenues, unfortunately not everything disclosed today was good news from the company. As part of Intel’s quarterly earnings presentation, the company announced that their under-development 7nm manufacturing process has suffered a six month delay due to a defect in the process. As a result, the first consumer products aren’t due until at least late 2022, leaving Intel with 10nm as their best in-house manufacturing process for the next couple of years.
But even more important than that, the delay has spurred some soul searching within Intel, driving the company to pivot on its manufacturing plans and open the door to using third-party fabs for a much broader segment of its products. Going forward, the company will be taking what CEO Bob Swan and other leadership are calling a “pragmatic” approach, looking at both in-house and third-party fabs and using those fabs that make sense for the company and the product in question. And while the company has not announced any specific plans to outsource production – they are looking at it for products in the 2022-and-later timeframe – it would be hard to overstate how dramatic of a shift this is for the industry, and for a company that even five years ago was the world’s leader in silicon lithography manufacturing.
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