Intel Corp (INTC)

[mas]

I see many reasons to expect at least one of the Big Three will fall off of the balance beam in the next 5 years.

It won't be Intel in that time frame because Intel already has a 2 year advantage over its opposition (14FF) and pretty confident enough to give detailed stats about its next generation (10FF) while the competition only has 20nm planar confirmed as a genuine production worthy process at this moment. So the immediate question marks in the next 5 years are on TSMC, G-F and Samsung with INTC investors worries only about design execution.

What happens when/if the foundries catch up to a genuine 10FF, i.e. not just using 14nm BEOL will decide the 5-10 year future after then. There are encouraging signs that EUV might just be ready for 7FF so Intel could serenely march on to continue having a lead in that time period without missing a 2-year step after 10FF.