Part 3/9:
Pat Gelsinger was hailed as a possible savior. With 30 years of engineering experience at Intel, including pivotal roles in designing earlier chips, he appeared to possess both the technical know-how and market understanding lost over the years. His IDM 2.0 strategy was envisioned to boost innovation by capitalizing on Intel’s unique position as a U.S. chip manufacturer.
IDM 2.0 promised to revolutionize Intel's approach by expanding its manufacturing capabilities through Foundries—massive plants that would produce microchips not just for Intel but for other companies as well. This diversification aimed to reduce dependency on volatile consumer desktop CPUs.