Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan continues to make interesting decisions, glass substrate plans scrapped

Intel has reportedly significantly restructured its glass substrate workforce after years of development, and would move into off-the-shelf solutions.

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In some continued (weird) decisions from new CEO Lip-Bu Tan, rumor has it the company has performed a huge restructuring of its glass substrate workforce. It looks like Intel is shifting away from the strategy of internally producing and fully customizing glass substrates, and would instead use off-the-shelf glass substrates from other companies.

Not just that, but various glass substrate companies are reportedly reaching out to former Intel staffers, with South Korean firms "closely monitoring the situation". Intel had spent years on developing the technology for glass substrates, and had a huge lead in the glass substrate market... but these reports are looking grim indeed.

It was barely hours ago that Intel decided to reduce the power of its new in-house 18A process node, removing external sales of Intel 18A to tech companies, which should lower the operating costs of its Intel Foundry division. Intel will use its in-house 18A process node for its Panther Lake and Clearwater Forest CPUs, but the use of Intel 18A on the market will be far lower than previously promised.

Lip-Bu Tan is really slicing and dicing every area that he can within Intel, with the future of Intel Foundry up in the air for the many reasons listed above. I don't know if all of these decisions are enough to steer the ship back into calmer water, but even if they are, Intel 18A is now toast for external use, and the years of developing glass substrate technology have just been thrown out the window.