Chip architecture isn't current Intel's problem, process architecture is.
There's some overlap between the 2, but 100% of Intel's current struggles can be chalked up to dysfunction on their process side.
Given the lead time of chip arch (2-3 years?), the chip side of the house is arriving at manufacturing start day, and the process and specs they'd been optimizing for just aren't available.
Until Intel's process catches up, other parts of the company have limited options. (TSMC!)
The process side of this industry is in a really scary spot right now. TSMC is killing it. Nvidia is using Samsung to fab the RTX 3xxx chips, and there's some rumblings that low yields are a reason why those are in such short supply (not to mention, whenever Samsung releases a new phone only some regions get the Exynos chips, because historically they couldn't produce enough of them; Samsung used to have a pretty cool relationship with Qualcomm whereby Snapdragons were fabbed with Samsung, but more recently, they've moved to TSMC).
On the high performance side, everyone is moving to TSMC. If Samsung and Intel's fabs continue to exhibit issues at these smaller process node sizes, the monoculture is only going to get worse. We need Intel to get their act together, not just because it pushes better design innovation from AMD and Nvidia (not that they need it right now), but because their fabs are a critical, independent part of the software supply chain. They're the last western company with any form of high yield fabrication on high performance chips. At this point, we shouldn't just be worried about Intel's bottom line; we need to start being legitimately worried about national security (both in tactile cyber-warfare terms, and also more nebulous economic terms with regard to western manufacturing).
The geopolitical angle is not to be forgotten either.
TSMC is majority-based in a country whose land and government is claimed by another, nearby, much larger country. A country willing to leverage international economic options to further that claim.
TSMC's global importance has direct implications on the world's appetite for intervening or preemptively selling arms against a hypothetical Taiwan Strait invasion.
The interesting question is which company it makes the most sense to try to save. Intel seems to be plagued by various mismanagement and doesn't have a strong record as a contract fab for the other companies that may need a competitor to TSMC. If you're going to save somebody it may make as much sense to try to get one of the other players back into the state of the art game, like GlobalFoundries, which also operates several good (but not as good as TSMC) contract fabs in the US.
There's some overlap between the 2, but 100% of Intel's current struggles can be chalked up to dysfunction on their process side.
Given the lead time of chip arch (2-3 years?), the chip side of the house is arriving at manufacturing start day, and the process and specs they'd been optimizing for just aren't available.
Until Intel's process catches up, other parts of the company have limited options. (TSMC!)