Intel delays 2023 server chip, says it needs to boost spending to catch competitors
Intel stock fell about 6% on Friday after the company told investors at a meeting on Thursday that it will have to spend heavily in the next two years to power its turnaround and transformation into a manufacturer for other semiconductor companies.
The stock also took a hit on Thursday when CEO Pat Gelsinger confirmed that a forthcoming server chip, codenamed Granite Rapids, had been delayed from 2023 to 2024.
The chip is particularly important because it will be the first Intel server processor to use extreme ultraviolet lithography, a key technology Intel needs to deploy to catch up with TSMC and other top chip manufacturers.
Gelsinger took over as Intel CEO a year ago, promising to turn the company around as rival companies such as AMD and former customers such as Apple started to challenge Intel's status as the best processor maker in terms of power and performance.
But the market reaction to Intel's investor day announcements underscores the doubt the iconic chipmaker faces from investors who worry that Gelsinger's five-year turnaround plan will hurt profit margins and that its new chip foundry business is capital-intensive and risky.
“Some of you have said, ‘How do I know that you're executing on this? Help build my confidence,'” Gelsinger said.
Intel officials said on Thursday that the company plans to reach 10% annual sales growth by 2025 but that revenue growth this year would be “moderate.” Intel CFO Dave Zinsner said the company is entering an “investment phase” and expects at least $1 billion in negative free cash flow in 2022 as it increases capital spending.
Intel is building $20 billion chip factories in Arizona and Ohio, for example, and plans to announce a new European facility this year.
Granite Rapids delay
Meanwhile, Intel also hopes to catch up to TSMC and Samsung's chip manufacturing technology. In recent years, Asian chipmakers have leapfrogged Intel in terms of the “process node” they can use to manufacture microchips — TSMC is on a 5-nanometer node, while Intel remains on 10-nanometer. (Smaller process numbers are more advanced and produce more efficient chips.)
The Granite Rapids release delay suggests that, despite Intel's confidence that it could catch up by 2026, building new processor manufacturing techniques remains a technical and difficult process that is vulnerable to delays. The company says it plans to introduce 5 new nodes in the next four years, a more aggressive plan than rivals'.
Gelsinger said that the Granite Rapids chip release was pushed back so it could be manufactured on a more advanced node and so Intel could introduce a new biannual schedule for releasing major new server chips.
“Granite Rapids is now a product that is on Intel 3, a new microarchitectural core going into it, so it's a higher-performance product in '24. So we've changed the roadmap, and made it stronger,” Gelsinger said.
He added that he had spoken to Intel's server customers about the change. “We've taken all our major customers through it, and they're happy with the changes we made.”
Gelsinger acknowledged Wall Street skepticism about Intel's turnaround plan several times during the meeting on Thursday. He said he wanted to double earnings per share and also double Intel's “multiple,” or the ratio of the stock price and its earnings, but said it would require investor confidence.
Intel will start to report more information about its business units to help build that confidence. “You'll see how all of them are doing and how we're executing against what we said we would do,” Gelsinger said.
英特尔股价周五下跌约 6%，此前该公司在周四的一次会议上告诉投资者，它将不得不在未来两年内投入巨资，以推动其扭亏为盈并转型为其他半导体公司的制造商。
该股周四也受到打击，当时首席执行官帕特·盖辛格证实，即将推出的代号为 Granite Rapids 的服务器芯片已从 2023 年推迟到 2024 年。
该芯片尤为重要，因为它将成为英特尔首款使用极紫外光刻技术的服务器处理器，这是英特尔赶上台积电和其他顶级芯片制造商需要部署的一项关键技术。
Gelsinger 在一年前接任英特尔首席执行官一职，承诺在 AMD 等竞争对手公司和苹果等前客户开始挑战英特尔在功率和性能方面作为最佳处理器制造商的地位时扭转公司局面。
但市场对英特尔投资者日公告的反应突显出这家标志性芯片制造商面临的来自投资者的疑虑，他们担心 Gelsinger 的五年周转计划将损害利润率，并且其新的芯片代工业务是资本密集型和高风险的。
“你们中的一些人说，‘我怎么知道你们正在执行这件事？帮助建立我的信心，”Gelsinger 说。
英特尔官员周四表示，该公司计划到 2025 年实现 10% 的年销售额增长，但今年的收入增长将是“温和的”。英特尔首席财务官 Dave Zinsner 表示，该公司正在进入“投资阶段”，预计随着资本支出的增加，2022 年至少有 10 亿美元的负自由现金流。
例如，英特尔正在亚利桑那州和俄亥俄州建造价值 200 亿美元的芯片工厂，并计划在今年宣布在欧洲建立新工厂。
花岗岩急流延迟
同时，英特尔也希望在芯片制造技术上赶超台积电和三星。近年来，亚洲芯片制造商在可用于制造微芯片的“工艺节点”方面已经超越英特尔——台积电在 5 纳米节点上，而英特尔仍然在 10 纳米节点上。 （较小的工艺编号更先进，生产更高效的芯片。）
Granite Rapids 发布延迟表明，尽管英特尔有信心在 2026 年之前赶上它，但构建新的处理器制造技术仍然是一个技术性和困难性的过程，容易受到延迟的影响。该公司表示计划在未来四年内推出 5 个新节点，这是一个比竞争对手更激进的计划。
Gelsinger 表示，Granite Rapids 芯片的发布被推迟，因此它可以在更先进的节点上制造，因此英特尔可以引入一个新的两年一次的时间表来发布主要的新服务器芯片。
“Granite Rapids 现在是英特尔 3 上的产品，一个新的微架构核心进入其中，因此它是 24 年的更高性能产品。所以我们改变了路线图，让它变得更强大，”Gelsinger 说。
他补充说，他已经与英特尔的服务器客户讨论了这一变化。 “我们已经让所有主要客户都接受了，他们对我们所做的改变感到满意。”
Gelsinger 在周四的会议上多次承认华尔街对英特尔的转型计划持怀疑态度。他表示，他希望将每股收益翻一番，并将英特尔的“倍数”或股价与其收益的比率翻一番，但表示这需要投资者信心。
英特尔将开始报告有关其业务部门的更多信息，以帮助建立这种信心。 “你会看到他们所有人都在做什么，以及我们如何执行我们所说的我们会做的事情，”Gelsinger 说。
