The big picture: The past several years have seen some of the worst figures in Intel's 56-year history. The company faces trouble on all fronts, from foundry to consumer processors and server chips. As Intel reorganizes its foundry operations, new analysis paints a grim picture of its server business's current trajectory. According to SemiAnalysis, Intel's 2024 server processor volume declined for the third year straight. Following the precipitous drop in 2023, the company's data center business has reached a 14-year low.Based on data from Intel's 10K reports, analysts have charted Intel's data center CPU volume since 2011. The numbers aren't exact and appear as a percentage of 2011's total, but they reveal a peak in 2021, followed by an ongoing decline. The most dramatic fall occurred in 2023 when server processor volume plummeted by 50 percent of 2011's count. Intel's volume has fallen by over half since 2021.Chipzilla is losing ground to AMD in the consumer and server CPU markets. Late last year, the company admitted that it has no plans to answer to the 3D V-Cache that has made Team Red's Ryzen chips the undisputed masters of gaming desktops. Instead, Intel is bringing similar technology to its upcoming Clearwater Forest data center processors because it considers servers a more critical market.Set for launch sometime this year, Clearwater Forest and Intel's laptop-focused Panther Lake CPUs will also decide the fate of another business the company struggles with: semiconductor manufacturing. Both will prove whether the company's 18A node can compete against TSMC's leading 3nm and 2nm processes. // Related StoriesAlso read: Intel's takeover dilemma: A Gordian knot of funding and politicsHowever, Intel already turned to TSMC for last year's Lunar Lake notebook CPUs and may do so again for future chips in all sectors. The desktop Nova Lake processors, expected to emerge in 2026, will use transistors from Intel and another manufacturer, likely TSMC.Amid questions over the survival of Intel semiconductors, the company spun its foundry division into a separate entity that it admits will have to "earn" its business just like TSMC or Samsung. Intel claims that other prospective clients have successfully powered on products based on 18A, suggesting that the node's development is progressing smoothly.Sliding revenue and other problems led to the recent departure of CEO Pat Gelsinger, prompting Bill Gates to say that Intel has "lost its way." The Microsoft co-founder noted that Intel has fallen behind in foundry and chip design over the last decade.Rumors of a buyout are circulating, but it remains unclear who, if anyone, would want to acquire Intel.