> <i>Intel’s chief executive Bob Swan yesterday told industry analysts that the former industry leader in chip manufacturing might quit the fabrication business altogether, outsourcing its designs to Taiwan or South Korea instead. The company’s shock announcement called into question US efforts to return critical manufacturing capacity to the United States, and came despite semiconductor industry lobbying to secure federal subsidies for chip production in the United States. Semiconductors are the building blocks of the digital economy, and America’s inability to slow the decline of onshore chip fabrication is a strategic liability of the highest order.</i><p>Sounds like bad news. The diversity that remains of chip manufacturing must be preserved everywhere around the world, including the U.S, Europe, China and the rest of Asia. Not doing so would mean we're likely going to hit a dead end rather soon for current silicon.<p>> <i>Intel’s 10-nanometer technology has just come into production, three years after target, and is already obsolete. Once the industry leader, Intel lacks the engineering expertise to stay ahead of Asian competition.</i><p>source seems biased?
Seems overexaggerating.<p>> <i>Evidently that failed to impress Intel, which weighed the R&D costs of success in the next generation of chip production against the likelihood of a US government subsidy, and decided that outsourcing was the path of least resistance.</i><p>Intel has said that they are considering partial or complete outsourcing if it becomes necessary to stay competitive. That's very different from what the article claims, and anything else would be economic madness. I'm not sure "Intel committed to making sub-standard products by not considering contracting with manufacturers having top-of-line capability if their own developments keep lagging" would be better for Intel and the US economy?<p>I suspect that for complete outsourcing, they're also going to have trouble finding the capacity.<p>Similarly,<p>> <i>Intel, America’s aging national champion in the field, doesn’t have the ambition to compete against the Asians</i><p>They certainly have the ambition, it's just not clear if they can.