Intel Aiming to Expand Foundry Business; to Make Chips for Qualcomm

On Monday, Intel said its factories will start manufacturing chips for Qualcomm. It also laid out a roadmap to expand its new foundry business to catch rivals such as TSMC and Samsung by 2025. The US-based chipmaker also said that it will also make chips for Amazon, as it looks to expand its foundry business.

Intel Buckles Up for Semiconductor Race

On Monday, the chipmaker also said that it expects to regain its lead by 2025. Further, it laid out five sets of technologies it will bring to the market over the next 4 years. The chipmaker has lost the lead to TSMC and Samsung, whose manufacturing services have helped rivals AMD and Nvidia produce better chips. These competitors have invested greatly into chip manufacturing businesses, also called foundries.

Qualcomm and Amazon will give the chipmaker its first business. Qualcomm will use what Intel's 20A chipmaking process. This process uses new transistor technology to increase power efficiency. On the other hand, Amazon has a growing thirst for silicon as its data centers for AWS grow. However, the company has not been using the chipmaker's tech. From now on, though, Amazon will use Intel's packaging technology, the process of assembling chips and "chiplets" or "tiles", often stacking them up in so-called 3D formation.

CEO Pat Gelsinger said in an Reuters interview, "we're laying out a whole lot of details to The Street to hold us accountable", referring to investors. He added that the company will change its naming scheme too, aligning with how TSMC and Samsung market competing technologies.

The chipmaker did not give details how much revenue or manufacturing volume the customer wins would bring. However, Gelsinger said that the Qualcomm deal involved a "major mobile platform" and engaging in a "deep a strategic manner."

Qualcomm has an old habit of using multiple foundry partners, sometimes even for the same chip. So, it remains interesting to see how this relationship pans out.

New Tech to Make Chips

Intel had brought a new design for transistors for the first time in a decade. From 2025,  it has plans to acquire a new generation of machines from ASML that use extreme ultraviolet lithography. This technology projects chip designs onto silicon; like printing an old-fashioned photograph.

Now, all that's left for the chipmaker to do is to come good on the promises that it has made. However, years of delays under previous CEO has damaged its reputation. Even now, recently, the company announced delay of a new data center chip called Sapphire Rapids.