Guess what is making a comeback at Intel, yup, contra-revenue funding. SemiAccurate has learned that it never really went away, just changed targets, and the numbers appear to be pretty huge.

You might recall that Intel is trying everything it can to deflect that its 10nm process simply doesn’t work now, won’t ever work at a financially viable level, and in generally is going to cripple the company in the coming quarters. Don’t take our word for it, listen to Intel’s Q1 2018 call for the grim details.

You can hear the company trying to deflect to other new and emerging growth markets as a distraction. This has worked in the past, the investment community seems to actually believe that these new avenues are going to change Intel’s fortunes rather than simply being a distraction. Remember Intel’s phone SoC ambitions? Wearables? VR? IoT? Foundry? Shall I go on?

Back to the original point, SemiAccurate has been digging into how Intel is doing in their core markets, and how the outlook for adjacent markets is doing, and we found a whopper. That whopper is of course what looks to be a huge river of contra-revenue funding once again.

And again once again to torture the phrase, Intel seems to be trying very hard to keep this one quiet. We’re not sure what brings about this reticence though, if you were spending what appears to be roughly 10 digits of slush-like funding, wouldn’t you be proud of it? I sure know I would. So what is going on this time, and more importantly what does it say about the product line involved?

Note: The following is analysis for professional level subscribers only.

Disclosures: Charlie Demerjian and Stone Arch Networking Services, Inc. have no consulting relationships, investment relationships, or hold any investment positions with any of the companies mentioned in this report.