>Is this not a bit too short a time for results to show yet?
Pat so suddenly getting "retired" like this isn't based on the success or failure of the new foundry nodes. You're correct that they weren't supposed to ship yet anyway. With this news most are expecting they'll be (further) delayed soon, but the real cause of today's action is strategic.
Things at Intel are so far gone that there's now no choice but to look at splitting up the company and/or selling/merging key parts off. Pat didn't want to preside over breaking up Intel, he wanted to save the company by shipping the new nodes. This was always a long shot plan which would require the existing businesses to do well and new things like GPUs to contribute while massively cutting costs in other areas.
Those things didn't work out. The GPUs were late and under performed forcing them to be sold near break even. The market for desktop and laptop CPUs was much softer than expected for macro economic reasons and, worse, there were massive, delayed death field failures of the last two gens of desktop CPUs. Competitors like AMD generally took more share from Intel faster than expected in other markets like data center. The big layoffs announced last Summer should have been done in 2021. Those things combined caused time and money to run out sooner than the new nodes could show up to save the day. This is reality finally being acknowledged. Frankly, this should have happened last Summer or even earlier. Now the value has eroded further making it even harder to save what's left.
Pat so suddenly getting "retired" like this isn't based on the success or failure of the new foundry nodes. You're correct that they weren't supposed to ship yet anyway. With this news most are expecting they'll be (further) delayed soon, but the real cause of today's action is strategic.
Things at Intel are so far gone that there's now no choice but to look at splitting up the company and/or selling/merging key parts off. Pat didn't want to preside over breaking up Intel, he wanted to save the company by shipping the new nodes. This was always a long shot plan which would require the existing businesses to do well and new things like GPUs to contribute while massively cutting costs in other areas.
Those things didn't work out. The GPUs were late and under performed forcing them to be sold near break even. The market for desktop and laptop CPUs was much softer than expected for macro economic reasons and, worse, there were massive, delayed death field failures of the last two gens of desktop CPUs. Competitors like AMD generally took more share from Intel faster than expected in other markets like data center. The big layoffs announced last Summer should have been done in 2021. Those things combined caused time and money to run out sooner than the new nodes could show up to save the day. This is reality finally being acknowledged. Frankly, this should have happened last Summer or even earlier. Now the value has eroded further making it even harder to save what's left.