Nobody needs to force Intel to do this, Intel is already doing it. They manufacture other company's designs for hire. Opening up their foundries for use by other companies is part of Intel's current business strategy.
There are only three companies in the world with cutting edge semiconductor manufacturing capability: Samsung, TSMC and Intel.
This is probably one reason why Intel is moving towards providing foundry services. The barrier to entry for doing chip manufacturing is higher than for designing chips now. It’s still an open question if Intel can compete with TSMC and Samsung though.
FTA: "Intel also needs to build up a third-party intellectual property portfolio, design services, and a chip packaging and testing ecosystem with partners to make it easier for customers to use Intel's manufacturing process."
... "so far, there is no evidence to show any of these hurdles have been overcome," Shi said.
I said this yesterday in a different thread, but Intel needs to jettison its design business and just be a foundry. Pulling a reverse AMD. I don’t think they’ll be able to meaningfully acquire customers for their foundry business unless they split the company. I also think their foundry business is the one thing that could cause the stock to soar, and was historically what gave them their edge. I think there is a lot of demand for another possible fab outside of TSMC[1] because of the risk China poses to Taiwan but only if there is a process advantage. Right now TSMC has proven itself to be stable and continues to deliver for its customers. Intel is playing catch up, and sort of needs to prove it’s dedicated to innovating its fab business. I don’t think competing with its potential customers is a way of doing that.
[1] I know Samsung has foundry services (among others) but I don’t think they have the leading node capabilities that really compete with TSMC.
Intel and Samsung both have foundry capabilities. TSMC is just number one as of now. In a decade or two it is almost guaranteed that the top dog in this industry will shift given how historically volatile the entire semiconductor industry is.
There is no way Intel is going to exit fabrication.
They're using TSMC out of necessity, not desire. Intel's fabs are integral not only to their success and profits, but to the infrastructure of the United States itself. We simply cannot allow all CPU fabrication to be offshored, especially when most of it is close to China (Taiwan / TSMC). Samsung is too busy pumping out smartphone / tablet CPUs and NVIDIA's GPUs, so even if Intel wanted to use them, there's not enough capacity.
Intel is going to have to get their shit together, not just for their own sake, but for strategic manufacturing security interests of the United States as well.
Surely that would be anti competitive in the extreme? I'm surprised TSMC are just taking the money now... I'd be really surprised if Intel don't learn a load of tricks as the drill into getting silicon onto a different fab provider - both about their own processes and the underlying details of the technology.
Samsung and Intel aren’t capable of making chips that either Nvidia or Apple use. Intel isn’t even set up to do contract manufacturing and their entire software and hardware design tool chain is not industry standard and is geared toward their own chipsets.
Intel’s first major announcement for its foundry is manufacturing 16nm chips for MediaTek. This was state of the art for TSMC back in 2013
Are Intel getting cutting edge (3nm) chips made by TSMC ? I know they're outsourcing production of some of the older nodes, but that would be a bit surprising. Semiconductor manufacturing is all about scale - selling enough of each generation to fund development of the next generation (which is astronomically expensive). If Intel are buying cutting edge chips from TSMC then that would seem to be an act of desperation - helping their competitors because they have no choice due to their own troubles.
I think Intel's advantage in this hypothetical is access to foundry space. Porting their current CPU designs from TSMC to their own foundry is non-trivial (although it can't be that hard -- their integrated graphics are fabbed on their own process, and share quite a bit with their discrete units), but at least having completed that effort they have somewhere to go, instead of fighting over what will be extremely over-subscribed Samsung fabs.
Basically, no, it doesn't (unless something has changed a lot since I worked there; I haven't kept up very much since then). Intel designs and makes their own chips, so they don't want or need a contract manufacturer.
This is like saying Ford's factories have no competitors, and that's true too. Ford isn't going to farm out their car manufacturing to some other company. (I mean the final assembly; of course carmakers routinely get various components from suppliers, such as airbags, infotainment computers, seats, etc.)
Chipmaking is a little weird because, unlike carmaking where the automakers all own and operate their own final-assembly factories, or aircraft makers like Boeing which own their own factories, chipmakers are frequently "fabless" these days and do the design work but partner with a fab like TSMC to actually make the chips. Intel is an exception and doesn't do this.
It's a side business for Intel. Unlike AMD, Intel has never managed to produce GPUs that perform close to the current state of the art.
For TSMC, it would be an error to start large-scale production of chips for someone that still has their own manufacturing capability. TSMC would have to allocate less fab capacity to their existing customers, and those won't like that.
Isn't Samsung a more likely competitor to TSMC than Intel at this point?
Both of them offer foundries to outside companies. Samsung even made chips for Apple. Samsung is suppose to hit 3nm this year, and they plan to beat TSMC by 2030 as the world largest foundry.
It is unlikely that Nvidia and AMD will want to use Intel as their foundry. It is unlikely that Intel would be willing to offer pricing compelling enough to entice those two to use their foundries.
So long as TSMC and Samsung remain competitive (note, this doesn't mean better, just close enough -- better is also fine), I expect the vast majority of AMD and Nvidia chips to be manufactured by those two.
Chips are manufactured using equipment that is not made in Taiwan or China. It's primarily made in the USA, Japan and Europe. That same equipment is available to Intel.
In the last 12 months, Intel's net profit was $21,000,000,000.
I don't work for Intel so I don't know, but I'd wager that any chip node that TSMC can produce, Intel can produce as well. Intel has access to the same equipment and plenty of profit to work with. They either choose not to, or, they simply choose not to advertise the capability.
For TSMC, as a foundry, their manufacturing capability is a selling point. For Intel, it is a strategic advantage. It makes sense for TSMC to announce what node they are capable of. It does not make sense for Intel to do so. Intel sells chips based on the chips' capabilities. Not on Intel's manufacturing capabilities.
There are only three companies in the world with cutting edge semiconductor manufacturing capability: Samsung, TSMC and Intel.
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