Intel Corp on Monday said that its factories will start building Qualcomm Inc chips as it laid out a roadmap to expand its new foundry business to catch rivals such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and Samsung Electronics Co by 2025.
Amazon.com Inc is to be another new customer for the foundry chip business, said Intel, which for decades held the lead in technology for manufacturing the smallest, fastest computing chips.
Intel has lost that lead to TSMC and Samsung, whose manufacturing services have helped Intel’s rivals Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) and Nvidia Corp produce chips that outperform Intel’s.
AMD and Nvidia design chips that are made by the rival chip manufacturers, called foundries.
Intel described five sets of chipmaking technologies it is to roll out over the next four years.
The most advanced use Intel’s first new design in a decade for transistors, the tiny switches that translate to digital ones and zeros.
Starting as early as 2025, it is to tap a new generation of machines from the Netherlands’ ASML Holding NV that use what is called extreme ultraviolet lithography, which projects chip designs onto silicon, somewhat like printing an old-fashioned photograph.
“We’re laying out a whole lot of details to The Street to hold us accountable,” Intel chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger said in an interview, referring to investors.
Intel also said it would change its naming scheme for chipmaking technology, using names like “Intel 7” that align with how TSMC and Samsung market competing technologies.
Intel’s first major customers are to be Qualcomm and Amazon.
Qualcomm, which dominates chips for mobile phones, is to use what Intel is calling its 20A chipmaking process, which is to use new transistor technology to help reduce how much power chips consume.
Amazon, which is increasingly making its own data center chips for its Amazon Web Services, is not yet using Intel’s chipmaking technology, but is to use Intel’s packaging technology, the process of assembling chips and “chiplets” or “tiles,” often stacking them up in so-called 3D formation.
Intel excels in this packaging technology, analysts say.
“There have been many, many hours of deep and technical engagement with these first two customers, and many others,” Gelsinger said.
Intel did not give details how much revenue or manufacturing volume the customer wins would bring, although Gelsinger said at an event announcing the news that the Qualcomm deal involved a “major mobile platform” and engaging in a “deep a strategic manner.”
Qualcomm has a long track record of using multiple foundry partners, sometimes even for the same chip.
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