(upbeat music) >> Welcome everyone, this is Stephanie Chan with theCUBE. Recently analyst Dave Ross RADIO entitled, Pat Gelsinger has a vision. It just needs the time, the cash and a miracle where he highlights why he thinks Intel is years away from reversing position in the semiconductor industry. Welcome Dave. >> Hey thanks, Stephanie. Good to see you. >> So, Dave you been following the company closely over the years. If you look at Wall Street Journal most analysts are saying to hold onto Intel. can you tell us why you're so negative on it? >> Well, you know, I'm not a stock picker Stephanie, but I've seen the data there are a lot of... some buys some sells, but most of the analysts are on a hold. I think they're, who knows maybe they're just hedging their bets they don't want to a strong controversial call that kind of sitting in the fence. But look, Intel still an amazing company they got tremendous resources. They're an ICON and they pay a dividend. So, there's definitely an investment case to be made to hold onto the stock. But I would generally say that investors they better be ready to hold on to Intel for a long, long time. I mean, Intel's they're just not the dominant player that it used to be. And the challenges have been mounting for a decade and look competitively Intel's fighting a five front war. They got AMD in both PCs and the data center the entire Arm Ecosystem` and video coming after with the whole move toward AI and GPU they're dominating there. Taiwan Semiconductor is by far the leading fab in the world with terms of output. And I would say even China is kind of the fifth leg of that stool, long term. So, lot of hurdles to jump competitively. >> So what are other sources of Intel's trouble sincere besides what you just mentioned? >> Well, I think they started when PC volumes peaked which was, or David Floyer, Wikibon wrote back in 2011, 2012 that he tells if it doesn't make some moves, it's going to face some trouble. So, even though PC volumes have bumped up with the pandemic recently, they pair in comparison to the wafer volume that are coming out of the Arm Ecosystem, and TSM and Samsung factories. The volumes of the Arm Ecosystem, Stephanie they dwarf the output of Intel by probably 10 X in semiconductors. I mean, the volume in semiconductors is everything. And because that's what costs down and Intel they just knocked a little cost manufacture any anymore. And in my view, they may never be again, not without a major change in the volume strategy, which of course Gelsinger is doing everything he can to affect that change, but they're years away and they're going to have to spend, north of a 100 billion dollars trying to get there, but it's all about volume in the semiconductor game. And Intel just doesn't have it right now. >> So you mentioned Pat Gelsinger he was a new CEO last January. He's a highly respected CEO and in truth employed more than four decades, I think he has knowledge and experience. including 30 years at Intel where he began his career. What's your opinion on his performance thus far besides the volume and semiconductor industry position of Intel? >> Well, I think Gelsinger is an amazing executive. He's a technical visionary, he's an execution machine, he's doing all the right things. I mean, he's working, he was at the state of the union address and looking good in a suit, he's saying all the right things. He's spending time with EU leaders. And he's just a very clear thinker and a super strong strategist, but you can't change Physics. The thing about Pat is he's known all along what's going on with Intel. I'm sure he's watched it from not so far because I think it's always been his dream to run the company. So, the fact that he's made a lot of moves. He's bringing in new management, he's repairing some of the dead wood at Intel. He's launched, kind of relaunched if you will, the Foundry Business. But I think they're serious about that. You know, this time around, they're spinning out mobile eye to throw off some cash mobile eye was an acquisition they made years ago to throw off some more cash to pay for the fabs. They have announced things like; a fabs in Ohio, in the Heartland, Ze in Heartland which is strikes all the right chords with the various politicians. And so again, he's doing all the right things. He's trying to inject. He's calling out his best Andrew Grove. I like to say who's of course, The Iconic CEO of Intel for many, many years, but again you can't change Physics. He can't compress the cycle any faster than the cycle wants to go. And so he's doing all the right things. It's just going to take a long, long time. >> And you said that competition is better positioned. Could you elaborate on why you think that, and who are the main competitors at this moment? >> Well, it's this Five Front War that I talked about. I mean, you see what's happened in Arm changed everything, Intel remember they passed on the iPhone didn't think it could make enough money on smartphones. And that opened the door for Arm. It was eager to take Apple's business. And because of the consumer volumes the semiconductor industry changed permanently just like the PC volume changed the whole mini computer business. Well, the smartphone changed the economics of semiconductors as well. Very few companies can afford the capital expense of building semiconductor fabrication facilities. And even fewer can make cutting edge chips like; five nanometer, three nanometer and beyond. So companies like AMD and Invidia, they don't make chips they design them and then they ship them to foundries like TSM and Samsung to manufacture them. And because TSM has such huge volumes, thanks to large part to Apple it's further down or up I guess the experience curve and experience means everything in terms of cost. And they're leaving Intel behind. I mean, the best example I can give you is Apple would look at the, a series chip, and now the M one and the M one ultra, I think about the traditional Moore's law curve that we all talk about two X to transistor density every two years doubling. Intel's lucky today if can keep that pace up, let's assume it can. But meanwhile, look at Apple's Arm based M one to M one Ultra transition. It occurred in less than two years. It was more like, 15 or 18 months. And it went from 16 billion transistors on a package to over a 100 billion. And so we're talking about the competition Apple in this case using Arm standards improving it six to seven X inside of a two year period while Intel's running it two X. And that says it all. So Intel is on a curve that's more expensive and slower than the competition. >> Well recently, until what Lujan Harrison did with 5.4 billion So it can make more check order companies last February I think the middle of February what do you think of that strategic move? >> Well, it was designed to help with Foundry. And again, I said left that out of my things that in Intel's doing, as Pat's doing there's a long list actually and many more. Again I think, it's an Israeli based company they're a global company, which is important. One of the things that Pat stresses is having a a presence in Western countries, I think that's super important, he'd like to get the percentage of semiconductors coming out of Western countries back up to at least maybe not to where it was previously but by the end of the decade, much more competitive. And so that's what that acquisition was designed to do. And it's a good move, but it's, again it doesn't change Physics. >> So Dave, you've been putting a lot of content out there and been following Intel for years. What can Intel do to go back on track? >> Well, I think first it needs great leadership and Pat Gelsinger is providing that. Since we talked about it, he's doing all the right things. He's manifesting his best. Andrew Grove, as I said earlier, splitting out the Foundry business is critical because we all know Moore's law. This is Right Law talks about volume in any business not just semiconductors, but it's crucial in semiconductors. So, splitting out a separate Foundry business to make chips is important. He's going to do that. Of course, he's going to ask Intel's competitors to allow Intel to manufacture their chips which they very well may well want to do because there's such a shortage right now of supply and they need those types of manufacturers. So, the hope is that that's going to drive the volume necessary for Intel to compete cost effectively. And there's the chips act. And it's EU cousin where governments are going to possibly put in some money into the semiconductor manufacturing to make the west more competitive. It's a key initiative that Pat has put forth and a challenge. And it's a good one. And he's making a lot of moves on the design side and committing tons of CapEx in these new fabs as we talked about but maybe his best chance is again the fact that, well first of all, the market's enormous. It's a trillion dollar market, but secondly there's a very long term shortage in play here in semiconductors. I don't think it's going to be cleared up in 2022 or 2023. It's just going to be keep being an explotion whether it's automobiles and factory devices and cameras. I mean, virtually every consumer device and edge device is going to use huge numbers of semiconductor chip. So, I think that's in Pat's favor, but honestly Intel is so far behind in my opinion, that I hope by the end of this decade, it's going to be in a position maybe a stronger number two position, and volume behind TSM maybe number three behind Samsung maybe Apple is going to throw Intel some Foundry business over time, maybe under pressure from the us government. And they can maybe win that account back but that's still years away from a design cycle standpoint. And so again, maybe in the 2030's, Intel can compete for top dog status, but that in my view is the best we can hope for this national treasure called Intel. >> Got it. So we got to leave it right there. Thank you so much for your time, Dave. >> You're welcome Stephanie. Good to talk to you >> So you can check out Dave's breaking analysis on theCUBE.net each Friday. This is Stephanie Chan for theCUBE. We'll see you next time. (upbeat music)