Intel’s interim CEO suggests Gelsinger’s replacement should have chip fabrication experience, giving a glimmer of hope that Intel foundry could remain

Things get done quickly in multi-billion chip-making land. It’s only been a couple of days since Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger left the building, and already Intel has been approaching outside candidates for the CEO role.

Although he says he’s “not in the process” of choosing the new CEO, current interim CEO David Zinsner says, “I’m guessing that the CEO will have… both some capability around foundry as well as on the product side” (via Reuters).

In other words, the interim CEO is suggesting Gelsinger’s replacement should have experience working in a foundry. This would make sense if Intel wants to actually keep the foundry side of the business, given it’s spent the last few years trying to pump it up to take on TSMC.

This is a not-too-easy challenge, given that TSMC is the main fabrication company churning out chips for AI datacentre companies, primarily Nvidia. Which has been going well for it, to say the least.

Intel’s attempt at foundry pumping arguably began when Gelsinger returned to the company as CEO in 2021. Unfortunately, he didn’t manage to turn the tide of a chip business that’s seen record losses, share prices plummeting, replacement from a Dow Jones index with Nvidia, and chips suffering from over-volting issues.

Simply put, Gelsinger’s fabrication overhaul didn’t pan out. There’ve been fewer fabrication plants than planned and the ones that do exist haven’t worked out as well as Intel might have hoped. Case and point: TSMC now makes the bulk of Intel’s processor chips.

Of course, chips from Intel’s new 18A node haven’t hit the wild, yet, so we could see improvements there. But from what we have seen and where we’re at right now, “Chipzilla” has fallen far from its old image as the proverbial water-borne fifty-story raptor.

Now Intel’s getting a new CEO in-house, if the company’s fab business is to remain, the new boss will presumably need to be someone everyone thinks can steer it not in a completely new direction, but more assuredly in the same one. This would mean getting fabrication right, which is likely why Zinsner points out that the new CEO should have foundry capabilities.

But it’s not a given that Intel will keep its fabrication side of the business. There’s certainly reason to believe Intel’s chip fabs could follow Gelsinger out the door. In which case, I suppose a new CEO’s fabrication experience wouldn’t be necessary at all. But with just an “I’m guessing” from the interim CEO, it’s hard to know one way or the other just yet.