Intel’s ill-fated 7-nanometer manufacturing process is reportedly back on track after a six-month delay. Speaking during the company’s fourth-quarter 2020 earnings call Thursday, incoming CEO Pat Gelsinger expressed optimism that the majority of the chipmaker’s 2023 product portfolio would be built on the new process.

Intel’s 7-nanometer chips could also be some of the last manufactured in house. Gelsinger during the call appeared open to the idea of moving production to external fabs like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) or Samsung.

“Given the breadth of our portfolio, it’s likely that we will expand our use of external foundries for certain technologies and products,” the outgoing VMware CEO said.

This is likely a matter of timing as spinning up fabs is hardly a speedy endeavor. A recent Bloomberg report detailing Intel’s reported talks with TSMC and Samsung stated that any outsourced components wouldn’t be ready until 2023 at the earliest. The calculous may change if Intel’s 7-nanometer process experiences additional delays.

To that end, outgoing CEO Bob Swan, whose last day is Feb. 15, claimed the issues facing the company’s 7-nanometer process had been resolved.

“We have made tremendous progress on our 7-nanometer technology,” Swan said. "When 7-nanometer was originally defined, the flow contained a particular sequence of steps that contributed to the defect issue, we discussed in July. By rearchitecting these steps, we've been able to resolve the defects.“

Swan added that the company was also able to streamline the manufacturing process to “better ensure we’ll be able to deliver on our 2023 product roadmap.”

Gelsinger didn’t mince words regarding the perception that Intel was falling behind the competition, and expressed confidence that the company would turn things around.

“Intel has gone through cycles before,” said Gelsinger, evoking Intel’s missteps during the mid-2000s with Pentium 4 and multicore architectures.

“Personally I was very involved in the period where we were very diminished in the marketplace and late to the multicore,” he said. “In that period of time in 2005 through 2009, we turned around the company and unquestionably established the leadership position after a period where many were questioning the ability of the company to be successful.”

But in order to do that again, Intel needs to seize the opportunities ahead of it and “deliver the best products and stay ahead of our customers needs," he said.

Intel will provide additional details on its 2023 roadmap later this year, after Gelsinger can fully assess the situation.

Intel reported stronger than anticipated revenues during the fourth fiscal quarter of 2020, posting revenues of $20 billion, down 1% year over year, and beating guidance by $2.5 billion.

The company’s net incomes also showed signs of recovery. While still down 15% to $5.9 billion from $6.9 billion in Q4 2019, it was a marked improvement from the company’s third fiscal quarter where net incomes plummeted nearly 30%.

PC sales continued to prop up the chipmaker during the quarter with PC-centric sales up 9% year over year to $10.9 billion.

However, the company’s data-centric business continued to be a pain point for Intel, falling 11% year over year. Mobileye, Intel’s autonomous driving division, was the only data-centric business unit with positive growth during the quarter. Mobileye ended Q4 with revenues up 39% year over year to $333 million.

In light of the changing leadership, Intel declined to provide full-year guidance, promising instead to revisit the topic at a later date.

The company did provide first quarter 2021 guidance, predicting revenue of $18.6 billion.