Christopher Emmons

It seems sad, especially for many long term employees. But this has the best chance to actually save Intel Corporation and it's legacy, much like AT&T and AMD in the past https://lnkd.in/g8gpyfnM In a letter to employees, CEO made many major announcements, which will lead to breakup of Intel: (1) foundry will now be a new legal entity. They also announces AWS deal for 18a but I would wait for future developments there. (2) Of the 15000 job cuts Intel announced a month ago, about half are done via voluntary reductions. Next month another 7000-8000 employees will be given pink slips (3) Despite completely cancelling 20A, and other nodes also faltering, Pat Gelsinger keeps talking about 5 nodes in 4 years, claims it is done. Now it will be the job of new Intel Foundry CEO to make these statements, Pat can take a break (4) as announced last few weeks - Intel secured "up to" 3billion funding promise for defence related chips. What isn't mentioned - this funding is conditional on 18A meeting it's milestones (5) "Greater independence for Intel Foundry" - don't you love when management consultants spin bad news? Rest of Intel can now operate as normal Semiconductor design houses and probably compete more effectively with AMD and Qualcomm. (6) Intel will not build foundries in Germany and Poland and frankly anywhere else. Everything is now based on market demand. Ireland fab will be finished and will continue to be main site for manufacturing. Arizona, Oregon, New Mexico and Ohio will be upgraded as per Intel's existing commitments to private equity. Oregon is basically a pilot fab, New Mexico is old and in the hands of United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) now. Ohio has private equity investment and wafer guarantees so after Ireland Intel will probably ramp that one. Israel is more or less abandoned for future. Intel is leaving foundry business in a few years like AMD did with GlobalFoundries (7) Malaysia will have its advanced packaging build out, but since Intel has not been able to bag a major packaging customer outside of US defence contracts, I guess it's future is uncertain too (8) It is not written clearly, "but will leverage and complement our x86 franchise with a focus on enterprise, cost-efficient inferencing." seems to indicate that Intel is now not even pretending to go after AI training market. Gaudi is dead. No word here on FalconShores program, that's probably in trouble too unless a new x86 based inference variant is on cards. Otherwise #AI is in AI PC. (9) It seems on design house side, they are consolidating a number of departments between CCG (the laptop division) and DCAI (the servers group). NEX (networking) now has a very limited scope and will likely be on sale soon. (10) Intel selling 2/3 of its real estate - classic move by Private Equity owned companies in turnaround. Intel has better uses for the money let's hope this saves the mother of semiconductor industry

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An interesting framework to categorize the responsibilities on a DV team. However, IRL - having a methodology engineer who isn't quite up to snuff on the product requirements, and the team profile can end up with a TB that's very difficult to execute in. A coherent methodology is critical to DV execution, but it's not the hill I'd be willing to die on. Verification intent and capabilities always trump methodology.

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AI has recently catalyzed a shift toward disaggregation in the semiconductor industry and last Friday, I spoke with an engineering executive about this. Our discussion focused on NVIDIA’s dominance in AI hardware and he emphasized how important flexibility and choice are… fitting as we headed into Memorial Weekend. He said NVIDIA won’t go anywhere soon but the future belongs to companies that empower their customers with more choices. Long-term success in AI necessitates adapting to an ever-evolving technological landscape, and companies with monolith-like platforms such as NVIDIA’s will struggle to adjust. Yet one of his main concerns is the need for greater support for open architectures like RISC-V, and I couldn’t agree more. RISC-V is a key to unlocking a more democratic semiconductor ecosystem, which is why I’m encouraged by the work being done by companies like MIPS A pioneer in RISC-V development since its founding in the 80’s, MIPS saw their early success wane in the 90’s as the market was flooded with competing designs. After a series of sales and transitions, the company was near obscurity. However, like a Phoenix, MIPS has had a remarkable resurgence. The transformation began with their re-adoption of RISC-V in 2022. Last fall, the board appointed Sameer Wasson as CEO and he was later joined by RISC-V luminaries Drew Barbier and Brad Burgess from SiFive. Now, with the benefit of hindsight and visionary leadership, MIPS is once again fully committed to advancing RISC-V. By helping customers migrate their software code to open-source RISC-V, they’re breaking down the barriers of traditional architectures and demonstrating themselves as an ecosystem builder. Last month they announced a significant expansion of their partnership with Synopsys, further solidifying that commitment. This shift towards open architectures represents a huge opportunity for MIPS to help foster innovation, encourage competition, and enable a more democratic semiconductor ecosystem; virtues that many of the leaders and engineers I talk with every week care deeply about. It’s great to see MIPS growing again, and my encouragement to their leadership is this: emphasize the importance of your mission in conversations with curious engineers and leaders pursuing roles with the company. Go even further by integrating screening questions about your mission and values. Being excited for new engineering challenges is one thing, but being committed to making a difference in the world requires another level of dedication. #semiconductorindustry #artificialintelligence #RISCV

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