Comment by pqtyw
> Intel would be a highly successful foundry business
> very high performance RISC-V cores
Just need some unicorns on rainbows to with both of those.
> Intel would be a highly successful foundry business
> very high performance RISC-V cores
Just need some unicorns on rainbows to with both of those.
Both are objectively true, though. IFS would finally stand on it's own legs with a customer at Apple's scale, and Intel has the required IP and know-how to provide a stopgap RISC chip to embedded and datacenter customers that Apple usually ignores.
The "nightmare scenario" of Apple buying out the entirety of 14A to fabricate ARM chips is more-or-less what Pat Gelsinger spent his tenure trying to arrange.
Why would Intel design and make a RISC-V chips? Fundamentally they don't have any inherent advantages over x86 or ARM whatsoever(for datacenter atleast). It makes no sense for Intel to make embedded chips on 14A or non several generations old process either (margins on them are pitiful anyway and won't sustain Intel R&D spending).
Also x86 provides a huge moat to Intel/AMD which allows them to charge much higher prices than if they had to compete with anyone else.
Very high performance RISC-V cores have been available for licensing for a while.
Far from unicorn territory.
And we'll see them on chips soon. e.g. Tenstorrent announced Atlantis, a SoC and development platform, due 2026Q1.