The complexity and price of modern chip production is insane.
Hey I'd like to make computer chips. 😋
+You will need a lamp for that. 🤔
-OK how expensive could it be? 🫡
+$150 million for one lamp, take it or leave it! 🤑
😬
It's amazing that the result of this level of technology is available to consumers in the form of for instance smartphones. They really are a modern wonder.
Well I'm 61, and once you had to go to the library for information. You had to carry either bulky maps (books), or inconvenient fold outs, If you wanted a map of where you were. If you wanted to use a phone, you'd have to go home and use the landline, or use a phone-booth.
The Smartphone allows you to see the position of GPS satellites above you. And have your position pinpointed in seconds, with detailed maps, that span the world if you want to. And the ability to call is from wherever you are whenever you wish is probably taken for granted by most now.
The camera of a modern budget phone is way better, than when we used film, that was expensive and took time to get developed on paper.
The ability to record good quality movies is total SciFi for a child of the 70's, where 16mm was hot, and most couldn't afford it! Now phones even have stabilization, and way better color reproduction, and better light and resolution, so much better any comparison is laughable. My phone can even take 960 FPS slow motion!
The motion sensors are based on Quantum Dynamics, in itself a crazy high tech solution, that reside in $1 components!
Internet everywhere, and a selection of apps that is the envy of any other system, music and movies available either from storage or the net. Integration of these technologies that were almost impossible before smartphones, like Stellaris, that knows your position, and allows you to just point at the sky, to see what stars are there.
And all these technologies have come together in smartphones mostly since 2007! Only 17 years compared to a lifetime of 61 in my case. 😀
There is nothing currently comparable to smartphones IMO. Not even LLM. And it's available for average consumers.
We're a species that roughly sprouted up 300,000-400,000 years ago. We've only had this sort of technology and insight for less than half of a percent of that time.
By all measure, we're still just dumb apes for the most part. One nice thing is that our brains do seem to be getting bigger over time!
If you looked at more than just headlines, you'd know that things are looking up massively for their foundry business.
We're past the 14nm+++++++++, now it's the chip design portion of Intel that's fucking up and causing product delays.
Maybe Arrow Lake will have their chip design business getting back on track, maybe not. But as a foundry, they're doing well at the moment and when they open up their services to others, things are gonna go well for them there. Also helps that the US gov has sunk a lot of money into their foundry efforts.
Not to say that it's a sufficient penalty for the C-suite, but their compensation packages generally consist of stock options in the company, meaning that the share price decline following unexpected negative events translate into a large pay cut for them.
Intel disclosed deepening operating losses of $7 billion for its foundry business in 2023, a significant increase from the $5.2 billion in losses the previous year. The company's chipmaking revenue also declined by 31% in 2023, leading to a 4.3% drop in Intel's shares after the SEC filing. CEO Pat Gelsinger expects 2024 to be the worst year for operating losses in the chipmaking business, with the goal of breaking even by 2027. Intel's turnaround plan involves investing $100 billion in chip factories across four U.S. states and persuading outside companies to use its manufacturing services.
