It's not 20 years. Just 12 years ago Intel was launching Ivy Bridge on 22nm and was absolutely on top of the world.
It's true they've completely fallen off the pace. But people tend to forget how rapidly this happened. Even as late as the semi-aborted 2018 launch of Cannon Lake it seemed like it was just a routine burp they'd correct with a process respin. Then TSMC quietly reached parity with 7nm, shipped 5nm which was a better process, and by 2021 Apple had jumped ship and Intel was falling behind even AMD.
The disaster happened fast. Boards of Directors aren't that agile.
It's true they've completely fallen off the pace. But people tend to forget how rapidly this happened. Even as late as the semi-aborted 2018 launch of Cannon Lake it seemed like it was just a routine burp they'd correct with a process respin. Then TSMC quietly reached parity with 7nm, shipped 5nm which was a better process, and by 2021 Apple had jumped ship and Intel was falling behind even AMD.
The disaster happened fast. Boards of Directors aren't that agile.