Intel will regain its crown in chip manufacturing, new CEO Pat Gelsinger said Thursday, a strong statement given years of manufacturing difficulties. After reviewing Intel's next generation manufacturing process improvements and new developments in chip manufacturing, he expects Intel to reassert "the undisputed leadership in process technology."
"I was very pleased to see that some of the long-term innovations have emerged from this [technology development] As we work to fill in gaps with outside foundries and take a leap forward, "said Gelsinger. During his 30-year tenure at Intel, Gelsinger was the architect of the 80486 key chip and rose to chief technology officer before joining the final spent eight years as CEO of software company VMware.
Top tips from the editors
Subscribe to CNET Now for the day's most engaging reviews, news, and videos.
Reclaiming that leadership position would give Intel-based PCs better speed and battery life than not only today's Windows computers, but also new MacBooks that use Apple's highly competitive M1 chip.
Gelsinger, who will replace CEO Bob Swan on February 15, made an early appearance when Intel reported fourth quarter financial results. The company reported earnings per share of $ 1.52, well above analysts' expectations, on $ 20 billion in revenue for the quarter, but also expects revenue to decline 12% in the first quarter and earnings to decline 24% compared to the previous year.
Intel has ceded leadership to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., which makes chips for competitors such as AMD, Apple, Qualcomm, and Nvidia, and will invest $ 28 billion this week to expand the facility in 2021.
In a remarkable shift in its business and culture, Intel will be one of those customers for its core products this year. The analyst firm Trendforce assumes that TSMC will build Intel PC processors in the lower price range in the second half of 2021 and chips in the middle and upper price range in 2022.
But Intel wants to keep most of its manufacturing under its own roof, said Gelsinger. "I'm confident that much of the 2023 products will be manufactured in-house," he said, referring to the year that Intel's next generation delayed manufacturing process is expected to go online.
The company has tried to miniaturize chip electronics. It has only just begun seriously converting its processors to a process with electronic characteristics of 10 nanometers (10 billionths of a meter), and a six-month delay was announced in July for the transition to the next-generation 7nm process.
"We were able to fix the shortcomings" that hampered the 7nm process, Swan said Thursday.
Intel had problems but recovered beforehand, Gelsinger said, specifically pointing out the slow transition to chips with multiple processor cores from 2005 to 2009. "Great companies can come back from difficult and challenging times," he said.
