Intel fourth-quarter 2017 financials & “in-silicon” CPU fixes

Generally Intel’s financial performance has always been very solid, often led by stellar +60% margins. But in 2017 and in wake of the new CPU flaws, this briefing was somewhat different in some ways as some predicted.

Intel fourth-quarter 2017 financials & "in-silicon" CPU fixes 

Intel fourth-quarter 2017 financials & “in-silicon” CPU fixes

The shadow of the Meltdown and Spectre flaws were allover the Intel in the past 2 month, threatening to blot out some of Intel’s black ink. That didn’t happen though, as Intel has now posted record results, its stock is up 4% after hours. We also have now new information on the Intel’s plans to address the CPU flaws and a decline in the Intel’s desktop processor sales.

Intel reported another quarter with an 8% increase in quarterly revenue, up to $17.1 billion, with the data center, programmable solutions (FPGA), and IoT groups leading the record revenue (excluding McAfee). Full-year 2017 revenue weighed in at $62.8 billion, a healthy 9% YoY growth rate. Notably, earnings per share were up 37%.

Intel CEO Brian Krzanich started the call with a restatement of Intel plans for security, which is similar to his statements in the CES 2018 keynote. Krzanich later said Intel will begin to ship products with “in-silicon” fixes for the CPU flaws as soon as this year. he did not clarify what he means by that but it is easy to guess that this means that the company will include these fixes for the flaws in the 10nm generation of products coming in the end of this year.

Krzanich The Intel’s CEO also stated that the company is set to continue developing its 14nm products in 2018, so it could also mean that the new 14nm CPUs that will be produced this year will be immune to the flaws of current flaws in 14nm processors so you could speculate that these chips might have in-silicon patches for the vulnerabilities while keeping the performance and current features.

Tags: technology, intc, intel, intel cpu flaws, intel fixes, in-silicon CPU fixes, in-silicon, cpu, intel cpu, intel stocks, stocks, intel shares, intc stocks,

Mohsen Daemi
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