Acquired · Intel · Overview
Intel
The integrated-device manufacturer that defined the era it was about to lose.
Major events · 1968–2021
- 1968Founding
Intel founded — Noyce, Moore, and Grove
Noyce and Moore leave Fairchild. Grove joins as employee #3. Initial product: DRAM semiconductor memory chips.
Acquired Intel episode
- 1971Product
Intel 4004 — world's first commercial microprocessor
Delivered to Busicom for a Japanese calculator. Intel negotiates back the right to sell the chip commercially. The microprocessor business begins by accident.
Acquired Intel episode
- 1981Strategic shift
IBM PC uses Intel 8088 — the Wintel standard is born
IBM selects Intel's x86 architecture for the IBM PC. IBM clones proliferate; every one runs x86. Intel's architecture becomes the de-facto standard for personal computing for 40 years.
Acquired Intel episode
- 1985Strategic shift
Grove exits DRAM — bets everything on microprocessors
Andy Grove asks Gordon Moore: 'If we got kicked out and the board brought in a new CEO, what would he do?' Moore: 'He'd get us out of memory.' So Grove did. The most studied strategic pivot in semiconductor history.
Acquired Intel episode
- 2004Strategic shift
Intel cancels Tejas — first sign of process stagnation
Intel cancels its next-generation Tejas processor due to heat/power issues. AMD gains ground with Athlon 64. The tick-tock manufacturing cadence that drove Intel's leadership begins to slip.
Acquired Intel episode
- 2019Crisis
10nm delayed again — TSMC ships 7nm for Apple
Intel's 10nm process, planned for 2015, ships in 2019 — 4 years late. In 2020, Apple announces it will move Macs from Intel to its own ARM chips built by TSMC. The Wintel era ends.
Acquired Intel episode
- 2021Leadership
Pat Gelsinger returns as CEO — foundry bet announced
Gelsinger (Intel's first CTO, left in 2009) returns from VMware. Announces Intel Foundry Services: Intel will manufacture chips for third parties, competing directly with TSMC. The bet is recovering manufacturing leadership.
Acquired Intel episode
Origin
Silicon memory chips (DRAM) were the future of computing storage; Noyce (co-inventor of the integrated circuit) and Moore (of Moore's Law) founded Intel to manufacture them at scale.
Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore left Fairchild Semiconductor — the most important semiconductor company before Intel — to found Intel in 1968 with Andy Grove as employee #3. The early business was DRAM chips. The strategic pivot came in 1971 when Intel delivered the first commercial microprocessor (the 4004) to Japanese calculator company Busicom. The 8080 (1974) and the IBM PC contract (1981) established Intel's dominance. In 1985 Grove made the most consequential strategic decision in semiconductor history: exit DRAM entirely, bet everything on microprocessors. The x86 architecture became the standard for personal computing for 40 years. Intel's decline — from the 2010s onward — is equally instructive: manufacturing process leadership ceded to TSMC while AMD caught up on architecture.
Key facts
Market cap at peak of PC era (2000)
~$500B
Manufacturing process lag vs TSMC (2023)
~2 nodes behind
Episodes · 1 covering this company