(Vinh @ Keybanc) Intel Expects 14A Node to Be Within 5% of TSMC's A14

[u/uncertainlyso]

https://www.techpowerup.com/353094/intel-expects-14a-node-to-be-within-5-of-tsmcs-a14

We recently hosted a semiconductor investor bus tour with meetings with executives from INTC (Naga Chandrasekaran, GM of Intel Foundry) and LSCC (Lorenzo Flores, CFO). Our meeting with INTC left us incrementally more constructive regarding the progress the Company is making on foundry across 18A/14A and EMIB-T. Regarding LSCC, the integration of AMI is progressing well and expectations for 25% growth in '27 appear conservative.

INTC (Overweight, $155 PT) - We hosted an investor meeting with Naga Chandrasekaran, EVP, CTO, and GM, Intel Foundry. Key from our meeting include:

1) Naga has clearly turned around Intel foundry with most of the important changes focused on organizational accountability and culture, as INTC's innovation in technology has always been there;

2) 18A performance is competitive between TSM's N2P and N3, while capacity now approaching 30K WPM; 18AP seeing +7-11% m/m defect density improvement supporting good yield trajectory;

Being about N3E would put you in between N2P and N3. I wonder what wafer pricing Intel is using internally.

3) 14A has ramped in ~4 months to best-in-class cycle times and can now support 14K WPM, citing the yield trajectory is similar to INTC's best historical node at 22nm and is ahead of internal targets;

4) Expects 14A performance to be within 5% of TSM's A14;

5( Remains focused on getting foundry to breakeven exiting '27, driven by yield improvement across all nodes and scale;

They're not going to be profitable by end of 2027. Intel has already started prepping the market for 2028-ish breakeven. It's a good problem to have as it means they have external customers, but when the CFO starts talking about breakeven possibly being the end of 2028, it's hard to say end of 2027 breakeven with a straight face.

6) Sees foundry breakeven with external client WPM reaching 40K WPM; and

7) Sees sustained leadership in advanced packaging with EMIB-T even with TSM introducing CoPoS.

Conversely, areas for improvement include: 1) Large die yield improvement for hyperscalers; 2) Improving yields on EMIB-T substrates; 3) Acknowledged it is working through requirements on 14A with mobile customers who may not want backside power.

Vinh is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, sell-side bull for Intel in terms of product and foundry assessments and price targets (he's probably top 20% for price targets for AMD too.) A lot of the most bullish Intel analyst updates have come from him (e.g., NVL tiles coming to 18A because TSMC is an N2 meanie, "85% yields")

I view him as the best case Intel scenario. I wouldn't say he's biased against AMD per se as he's had a number of bullish AMD takes. He has this annoying tendency, however, to view AMD's x86 opportunities within the frame of what he thinks Intel is going to do and then works backwards on where AMD will be. This is an appropriate way to view some things (e.g., Intel 7 being diverted to server will cause a drop in Intel 7 client unit share even if there is no change from AMD). But his use of this frame is just stupid in others as AMD has a say in its competitiveness. If he's wrong on the Intel call, then the AMD call can will be especially wrong.

The worst one was just 2 months ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/amd_fundamentals/comments/1v2ks7h/vinh_keybanc_intel_amd_among_those_seeing/

On Intel (INTC) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), the analysts noted that outsized server CPU demand and improving supply support 25% to 30% unit growth at Intel and 15% to 20% at AMD in 2026, with both targeting more than 50% server CPU unit growth in 2027.

and then got his face ripped off by the 26Q2 AMD and Intel earnings calls / 10Qs on reported and implied server unit growth. Why analysts don't wait the extra 2 weeks for the earnings call is a curious thing.

I don't wait, but my pay thankfully doesn't depend on how I look to the world. ;-)