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Intel is "saved" -- US will continue to manufacture computer chips
Tom's Hardware ^

Posted on 05/17/2026 8:57:59 PM PDT by powerset

Intel late on Tuesday [Mar 2026] announced that its board of directors had elected Dr. Craig H. Barratt as independent chairman, who will assume his role in mid-May after the company's Annual Stockholders’ Meeting. Craig H. Barratt, who has an engineering background, will replace Frank D. Yeary, who will retire from Intel's BoD after spending around 17 years there.

Barrat replaces Frank D. Yeary, who has a financial background and who once tried to split Intel into products and manufacturing companies and then get rid of the company's manufacturing assets. Instead of splitting Intel, Craig H. Barratt seems to envision the company as an integrated devices manufacturer with rigorous execution. .....


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Computers/Internet
KEYWORDS: apple; governmentchips; intel; manufacturing; tesla; tsmc

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In August 2025, Trump announced the US buying about 10% of Intel, and lots of FReepers complained.

I don't know if that investment influenced Intel's Board replacing Intel's Chairman but it's a good thing they did. Otherwise, the US could have lost its last major manufacturer of computer chips. (IBM and AMD stopped making chips years ago, and Nvidia never manufactured them.)

So Intel is "saved" and the US will continue to manufacture state-of-the-art computer chips.

1 posted on 05/17/2026 8:57:59 PM PDT by powerset
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To: powerset

Sorry, the actual title of the article is:

Intel Chairman Frank Yeary retires, Craig Barrat to become the new chairman of the Board of Directors


2 posted on 05/17/2026 9:00:00 PM PDT by powerset
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To: powerset

Are you saying it’s saved because they elected a new Chairman? I don’t think so.


3 posted on 05/17/2026 9:03:03 PM PDT by lasereye ( )
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To: powerset

When this was going down and INTC stock was $18 and thought to be left for dead, I called my friends and said their real estate in Silicon Valley and their patents are worth $18, and that the stock would double in a year.

I was wrong, INTC quintupled in a year.


4 posted on 05/17/2026 9:39:48 PM PDT by Attention Surplus Disorder (q)
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To: powerset

Regarding the line “US will continue to manufacture computer chips”, don’t forget Texas Instruments, NXP and onsemi (Motorola spinoff).


5 posted on 05/17/2026 9:52:39 PM PDT by Dr. Sivana ("Whatsoever he shall say to you, do ye." (John 2:5))
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To: Dr. Sivana

None of those are making anything better than about 12nm, IIRC. Intel is the closest to be able to match TSMC’s 3 and 5nm processes and catch up to them on the 1.*nm processes They were stuck on 10 and 14 for the longest time due to corporate stupidity and NIH syndrome. For those that don’t know, the smaller the chip features (the ‘nanonmeter’ or ‘nm’ number, lower is better), the less power the chip consumes, the more powerful the chip is, and the physically smaller it is - as a general rule.

Next step for Intel is to be able to get a foundry to the point where they can make our secure (military use) chips at volume - we only have two secure foundries in the US and they have huge backorders and long lead times. Neither is really able to crank out the volume of an Intel foundry.

One other thing we desperately need to secure is the at this time Dutch-only lithography technology that allows chips of this technology level to be made. Everyone that’s not on the naughty list is using their tech to get these chips made, and it’s the key technology - the machines are only made in Europe. We need to have our own production facilities here and we need to have our own R&D for these. A hostile or co-opted Europe could see the Russians or Chinese getting these machines. It’s as critical as when Toshiba decided to sell the Russians those CNC machines and all of a sudden the entire Russian fleet (especially the submarines) got orders of magnitude quieter - only worse.


6 posted on 05/17/2026 10:45:42 PM PDT by Spktyr (Overwhelmingly superior firepower and the willingness to use it is the only proven peace solution.)
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To: lasereye

The guy that just left was responsible for Intel getting stuck at 10 and 14nm and nearly tanking the company repeatedly. He’s the Silicon Valley equivalent to GM’s Roger Smith in terms of boneheaded decisions.


7 posted on 05/17/2026 10:47:01 PM PDT by Spktyr (Overwhelmingly superior firepower and the willingness to use it is the only proven peace solution.)
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To: Dr. Sivana

Elon will also have his say, putting chip design, AI assisted iterative evolution, and fabrication all under one roof...


8 posted on 05/17/2026 11:01:26 PM PDT by EasySt (Say not this is the truth, but so it seems to me to be, as I see this thing I think I see. #MAGA-A)
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To: Spktyr

i am still peeved at Toshiba over that. I know that the companies I listed are not cutting edge, but the article said chips, not leading technology chips. A lot of those chips made with older technology are very much needed in the chain. And of course tsmc is building facilities here right now. I consider the question of when we can have 1nm tech separate, and I don’t think we always have to have the fastest in quantity all of the time. tsmc will always have their best stuff in Taiwan, so that we have a reason to protect them. If the Netherlands has the best for now. So be it.


9 posted on 05/17/2026 11:08:13 PM PDT by Dr. Sivana ("Whatsoever he shall say to you, do ye." (John 2:5))
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To: powerset

This is rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic if they don’t do something about the woke-ism that infests the place. (Former Intel engineer here). The head of HR used to work for Obama.


10 posted on 05/17/2026 11:12:49 PM PDT by FrankRizzo890
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To: Dr. Sivana

The Netherlands don’t actually fab cutting edge chips themselves, they just make the lithography machines that everyone who *does* make those chips use to do so.

And yes, those older tech chips are needed, but we are entering an era where both consumer and military applications *need* those cutting or bleeding edge chips. There are a lot of things like self-flying drones that literally cannot work without advanced chips as the power consumption or heat generation is too high, or the performance you get when you meet the first two is just too low.

A secure and complete supply chain for computer chip production is every bit as important to national security today as having a steel industry was in WW2. And we have a bunch of people here on FR and in the government who just do not understand that and haven’t understood it for decades.


11 posted on 05/17/2026 11:20:53 PM PDT by Spktyr (Overwhelmingly superior firepower and the willingness to use it is the only proven peace solution.)
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To: lasereye

Or, put another way, the guy that just stepped down was the guy that thought it was a great idea to separate the chip design part of the company from the silicon foundry or production part of the company, and he wanted to sell the foundries to the Chinese.

Which would make Intel a fab-less chip company and totally screw the entire country.


12 posted on 05/17/2026 11:22:57 PM PDT by Spktyr (Overwhelmingly superior firepower and the willingness to use it is the only proven peace solution.)
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To: Dr. Sivana

tsmc will always have their best stuff in Taiwan


How many CCP moles are embedded in that company? You really can’t rely on Taiwan.


13 posted on 05/17/2026 11:31:03 PM PDT by dfwgator ("I am Charlie Kirk!")
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To: Attention Surplus Disorder

A few years ago I recommended NVIDIA to a friend because I thought everybody was going to be wearing VR glasses (NVIDEA made/makes chips for those). My friend invested and did extremely well, although it was AI that caused the increase.


14 posted on 05/18/2026 1:22:33 AM PDT by The Duke (Not without incident)
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To: The Duke

I similarly bought AMD at $5, before AI was just a twinkle in your father’s eye. Was just looking for a quick double, but here we are, 8,382% later.


15 posted on 05/18/2026 1:33:33 AM PDT by Mr. Blond
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To: powerset

my world has been software for 40+ years. if i was into hardware, i’d be looking into make a company that would produce every chip china produces here in the US.

Then promote it as ‘US made and worry free’... ie: won’t be calling home to china or failing at mysterious points in time.

the point to take over supplying the US defense sector.


16 posted on 05/18/2026 2:09:12 AM PDT by sten (fighting tyranny never goes out of style)
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To: powerset

Micron just started construction of a one hundred billion dollar chip making plant in New York state.


17 posted on 05/18/2026 3:04:50 AM PDT by odawg
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To: powerset

Barrett’s not new to the position. Just took a sabbatical.


18 posted on 05/18/2026 4:15:41 AM PDT by sasquatch (Do NOT forget Ashli Babbit! c/o piytar)
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To: powerset

>> Intel late on Tuesday [Mar 2026] announced that its board of directors had elected Dr. Craig H. Barratt as independent chairman

What? There were no Indians available for this important job?


19 posted on 05/18/2026 4:22:12 AM PDT by Nervous Tick (Hope, as a righteous product of properly aligned Faith, IS in fact a strategy.)
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To: lasereye

apple just did a gigantic deal with Intel to manufacture chips for Apple ... THAT’S also a BIG factor in saving Intel ...


20 posted on 05/18/2026 6:24:08 AM PDT by catnipman ((A Vote For The Lesser Of Two Evils Still Counts As A Vote For Evil))
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