Jakarta – Arm, or more precisely Arm Holding, is the company that holds the copyright for the core CPU designs used in almost all smartphones worldwide. And, the head of Arm recently spoke out about the turmoil happening at Intel. Arm CEO Rene Haas admitted to feeling sad about the situation at Intel, including Pat Gelsinger being forced to retire from the CEO position he previously held, as quoted by detikINET from Techspot, Monday (12/9/2024).
According to him, companies must continuously evolve in the technology industry. However, he acknowledges that Intel is indeed facing a dilemma regarding this change, namely whether to remain a company that designs and manufactures its own chips or to become a fabless company, which only designs chips and outsources their production to other companies. And, this dilemma has been present at Intel for at least the past decade. Although on one hand, it is clear that producing the designed chips in-house requires a very large investment. That is why AMD then adopted the fabless model, relying on partners like TSMC to manufacture the chips and avoiding the huge investment costs of building chip factories.
However, the route taken by Gelsinger since becoming CEO of Intel in 2021 is to remain a company that produces its own chips. According to Haas, this route requires 5-10 years to see its effects, and Gelsinger was forced to retire just 3 years after taking office.
Haas was reluctant to comment on rumors that Arm wanted to acquire Intel’s product division, which develops chips for PCs, servers, and networking devices. The offer was reportedly rejected by Intel. However, he confirmed that he often contacted Gelsinger to use Arm’s design licenses to improve Intel’s processes and boost chip manufacturing capacity. That offer was also rejected by Gelsinger.
Arm had also previously been rumored to venture into chip production, possibly for AI chips. However, Haas neither denied nor confirmed the rumor. He merely stated that the company would have its own advantages if they conducted chip design and production internally. That is, better understanding the interaction between the produced hardware and software.
Arm’s Boss Admits Feeling Sad Seeing Intel’s Condition
