Intel CFO: Our 10nm Will Be Less Profitable than 22nm [Morgan Stanley Transcription]

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This week at Morgan Stanley’s Analyst Conference, Intel’s CFO, George Davis, sat down to discuss the future of where Intel’s profitability lies. No stranger to the odd comments relating to how Intel manages its money, Mr. Davis was on fine form explaining that Intel is going to be in for a rough time as it corresponds to the leading edge. Among the statements made, Mr. Davis confirmed that Intel’s new 10nm node will be less profitable than its 22 nm node, let alone its 14 nm node.

Mr. Davis was quite frank in his comments, perhaps alluding to the fact that Intel might be willing to accept that 10nm development and deployment hasn’t gone quite the way the company had anticipated. In one statement, Mr. Davis said that

“Look, this just isn't going to be the best node that Intel has ever had. It's going to be less productive than 14 [nanometer], less productive than 22 [nanometer] … The fact is, like I said, it isn't going to be as strong a node as people would expect from 14nm or what they'll see in 7nm.”

Intel’s current 10nm portfolio, both released and announced, includes

• Cannon Lake (pre-10nm*, EOL, 2017),
  
• Ice Lake (10nm, launched 2019),
  
• Agilex FPGA (10nm, launched 2019),
  
• Tiger Lake (10nm+, late 2020),
  
• DG1 (10+, late 2020),
  
• Snow Ridge (10nm, late 2020),
  
• Lakefield (10nm/22nm, 2020),
  
• Ice Lake Xeon (10+, late 2020?),
  
• and Sapphire Rapids (10++, 2021?).
  

*Intel still isn’t completely decided if it wants to make Cannon Lake a proper thing in its history books, despite the fact that the company stated at CES 2018 that it had met commitments to ship the product by the end of 2017.

In order for Intel to maintain its market share in key areas, obviously it still needs its 10nm portfolio going forward. The company was keen to wheel out its first Tiger Lake working samples this year at Computex, for example, including a wafer of Tiger Lake silicon.

There was also commentary on how 10nm will be in terms of performance, essentially confirming that Intel isn’t striking its performance targets as required.

“But still, the effect of 10nm in 2021 is just, it's sort of built today because you've got to get through that product cycle and the node. We're excited about the products but you know, the node isn't going to be quite the performer that historically we've had… Interestingly, and indicative of how we're approaching process technology going forward, we also have 10+ coming out this year… it's hard to find a conference [where] we've been able to talk about some of these things”

Of course, we’re happy for Intel to reach out to us to talk about these things.
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