Intel Corp has talked with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and Samsung Electronics Co about the Asian companies making some of its best chips, but the Silicon Valley pioneer is still holding out hope for last-minute improvements in its own production capabilities.
After successive delays in its chip fabrication processes, Santa Clara, California-based Intel has yet to make a decision less than two weeks ahead of a scheduled announcement of its plans, people familiar with the deliberations said.
Any components that Intel might source from Taiwan would not come to market until 2023 at the earliest and would be based on established manufacturing processes already in use by other TSMC customers, said the people, asking not to be identified because the plans are private.
Photo: Ashley Pon, Bloomberg
Talks with Samsung, whose foundry capabilities trail TSMC’s, are at a more preliminary stage, the people said.
TSMC and Samsung representatives declined to comment, while an Intel spokesperson referred to previous comments by CEO Bob Swan, who has promised investors he would set out his plans for outsourcing and putting Intel’s production technology back on track when the company reports earnings on Thursday next week.
TSMC, the largest maker of semiconductors for other companies, is preparing to offer Intel chips manufactured using a 4-nanometer process, with initial testing using an older 5-nanometer process, the people said.
The company has said it would make test production of 4-nanometer chips available in the fourth quarter of this year and volume shipments the following year.
TSMC expects to have a new facility in Hsinchu County’s Baoshan Township (寶山) operational by the end of this year, which can be converted to production for Intel if required, one of the people said.
TSMC executives previously said the Baoshan unit would house a research center with 8,000 engineers.
Intel’s strategic shifts are happening at a time of booming demand, as well as technological change in the chip industry.
The traditional method of improving performance by shrinking and cramming more transistors into each package is being supplanted by more sophisticated techniques that include stacking processor and memory components into single chips and the introduction of more tailored designs for tasks like artificial intelligence.
Separately, United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) on Saturday had power-supply disruptions at two plants in Hsinchu that temporarily affected production, UMC chief financial officer Liu Chi-tung (劉啟東) said.
“The company will discuss with customers, and try its best to make up for lost production,” Liu said by telephone. “No major financial impact is expected.”
The overall impact of the incident was “quite minor,” Liu said.
Power was being gradually restored, he said.
China’s chip industry is growing faster than anywhere else in the world, after US sanctions on local champions — from Huawei Technologies Co (華為) to Hikvision Digital Technology Co (海康威視) — spurred appetite for homegrown components. Nineteen of the world’s 20 fastest-growing chip industry firms over the past four quarters, on average, hail from the world’s No. 2 economy, data compiled by Bloomberg showed. That compared with just eight firms at the same point last year. Revenue at China-based suppliers of design software, processors and gear vital to chipmaking is increasing at several times the pace of global leaders Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co
POSITIVE SIGNS: GlobalWafers has continued to sign long-term supply agreements, most of which exceed 2028, and aside from one factory, it is running at full capacity GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s third-largest silicon wafer maker, yesterday said that Samsung Electronics Co and most of its customers have not scaled back on orders, or delayed shipments, even though consumer spending has shifted away from smartphones and notebook computers due to mounting inflation pressures. Rising inflation has altered consumers’ spending habits, dampening sales of consumer electronics, the Hsinchu-based company said. However, customers all honored their supply agreements by adjusting their product mix and shifting to applications that are still reporting robust growth, it said. Aside from one 6-inch factory, GlobalWafers’ 15 factories around the world are running at 100 percent
HEAVY LOAD: CAL’s new baggage weight allowance is based on the type of airfare a passenger bought, while EVA’s would be available to all economy-class passengers China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空) is to increase its free baggage allowance by 10kg for passengers flying to Europe, Australia or New Zealand, while lowering its fee for luggage exceeding the free weight limit, it said yesterday. The move is the airline’s latest effort to attract passengers, after local rival EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空) late last month announced that from Thursday it would increase its free baggage weight allowance for all passengers. For economy-class passengers who fly to destinations other than the US and Canada, CAL currently has three weight limits for free baggage based on the airfare — 20kg for “discount”
Nearly a quarter of European companies in China are considering shifting their investments out of the country as COVID-19 outbreaks and lockdowns dim the outlook for the world’s second-largest economy, a survey showed. About 23 percent of the businesses that responded to the survey are thinking of moving their current or planned investments away from China, a report released yesterday by the EU Chamber of Commerce in China said. The survey was conducted at the end of April, when Shanghai was still in shut down and restrictions in places like Jilin Province disrupted business activity. The number of European firms reassessing
RSS