Intel established its foundry enterprise unit in March 2021
Intel’s nascent foundry enterprise — Intel Foundry Providers (IFS) — has taken an enormous leap ahead with a deal to supply chips for fabless semiconductor provider MediaTek for a variety of good edge gadgets. The announcement comes because the U.S. authorities is making ready to supply vital subsidies to extend U.S.-based chip fabrication, a choice that many anticipate will disproportionately profit Intel.
At present, MediaTek makes use of Taiwanese firm TSMC for many of its foundry companies, however, in response to world shortages and different provide chain challenges, is seeking to diversify by including manufacturing capability in each the U.S. and Europe.
“As one of many world’s main fabless chip designers powering greater than 2 billion gadgets a yr, MediaTek is a terrific associate for IFS as we enter our subsequent part of development,” mentioned IFS President Randhir Thakur. “We’ve got the precise mixture of superior course of know-how and geographically numerous capability to assist MediaTek ship the following billion linked gadgets throughout a variety of functions.”
The chips for MediaTek will probably be produced on the ‘Intel 16’ node, an up to date model of its legacy course of optimized for low-power gadgets known as the 22FFL node.
IFS was established in 2021, and since then, there was some uncertainty round Intel’s true potential on this subject. Nevertheless, based on analyst agency J.Gold Associates, LLC, the take care of MediaTek would possibly simply put the corporate on the foundry map.
“Signing a serious participant like MediaTek offers Intel a level of credibility it wouldn’t have with lesser gamers. However it additionally signifies that given the amount potential for a MediaTek relationship, Intel believes in its capacity to behave as a foundry service and to have sufficient capability in place for top quantity manufacturing for others. This has been a query for a lot of as they’ve tried to evaluate the actual capability out there at Intel for its foundry enterprise and whether or not Intel was actually critical,” said J.Gold Associates.
The agency additionally predicts that whereas the settlement is at the moment restricted to the extra mature 16nm course of node, it’s probably that it will change in the long run. “It’s extra probably that 16nm was merely the place that Intel had the out there capability, and that MediaTek felt snug inserting an order,” the agency guessed. “However as Intel stabilizes its extra forefront fabs like 10nm and beneath that might not be at full capability with its personal merchandise, there’s each probability Intel will finally supply foundry companies at these nodes as properly.”
Since saying IFS in March 2021, Intel has dedicated to investing $20 billion to construct two new semiconductor fabrication services in Arizona, which it says will deliver greater than 15,000 long-term jobs to the Arizona economic system. And in February of this yr, Intel introduced plans to amass Israeli specialist chipmaker Tower Semiconductor for roughly $5.4 billion, a transfer that “considerably advances Intel’s IDM 2.0 technique as the corporate additional expands its manufacturing capability, world footprint and know-how portfolio to handle unprecedented trade demand,” based on the corporate.
In a press launch, Mediatek’s Company Senior Vice President of Platform Know-how & Manufacturing Operations NS Tsai highlighted the chip makers “lengthy adopted a multi-sourcing technique.”
“We’ve got an current 5G knowledge card enterprise partnership with Intel, and now prolong our relationship to manufacturing good edge gadgets by way of Intel Foundry Providers,” mentioned Tsai. “With its dedication to main capability expansions, IFS offers worth to MediaTek as we search to create a extra diversified provide chain. We look ahead to constructing a long-term partnership to serve the fast-growing demand for our merchandise from prospects throughout the globe.”
