[Hardware] Intel Foundry Services & MediaTek Enter Partnership, Pulling TSMC’s Grasp Away

[ROVEN]

 

Intel and Mediatek have announced that the two companies are entering a strategic partnership in which the Intel Foundry Services, or IFS, will begin creating and manufacturing chips for MediaTek. The association also adds to the current assistance that MediaTek is receiving from semiconductor manufacturer, TSMC. Intel Foundry Services, one of the most prominent chip designers in 2021, will assist in the manufacturing of chips for MediaTek's line of intelligent edge devices.

Intel Foundry Services partners with the company MediaTek to assist in producing chips for intelligent edge devices

The timing of the partnership is ideal in that Intel, along with the US semiconductor industry, is planning to receive increased subsidies from the government to assist with boosting chip fabrication in the United States. Intel is set to fabricate its 16nm chips for MediaTek, a redesign of the previous 22FFL node that was which is an older process moved to Legacy process but is great for low-power devices.

 

Intel states that the partnership is anticipated to not only be a long-lasting one but also reach past just intelligent edge devices. TSMC produces most of the chips for MediaTek, but the company is looking to achieve a more significant supply chain. To do this, MediaTek will need to add chip production locations in the US and Europe, which IFS currently has available in both sectors.

Currently, there's no word from Intel on the specific time when MediaTek's products will ship, but comments that the Intel 16nm will be the first revisions of the silicon seen to clients this year but will see higher volumes beginning in 2023.

 

IFS was established in 2021 to help meet the surging global demand for advanced semiconductor manufacturing capacity. IFS is differentiated from other foundry offerings with a combination of leading-edge process and packaging technology, a world-class IP portfolio, and committed capacity in the United States and Europe. IFS customers will reap the benefits of Intel’s recently announced factory expansions at existing sites, as well as plans for major new investments in greenfield sites in Ohio and Germany.

Currently, MediaTek manufactures over two billion devices each year, so it is unknown when MediaTek will switch the chips to the blue team's chip line. It is also unknown how much of the production of MediaTek's smart edge devices using Intel's chips will come from the US and Europe.

Most processors available on the market are older and established legacy nodes and not newer technology we have reported over the last few years. However, readers will remember that Intel ensured that the roadmap the company created last year was to design five new nodes over the next four years.

MediaTek plans to use Intel process technologies to manufacture multiple chips for a range of smart edge devices. IFS offers a broad manufacturing platform with technologies optimized for high performance, low power and always-on connectivity built on a roadmap that spans production-proven three-dimensional FinFET transistors to next-generation breakthroughs.

“As one of the world’s leading fabless chip designers powering more than 2 billion devices a year, MediaTek is a terrific partner for IFS as we enter our next phase of growth,” said IFS President Randhir Thakur. “We have the right combination of advanced process technology and geographically diverse capacity to help MediaTek deliver the next billion connected devices across a range of applications.”

With Intel choosing to invest $20 billion into the company's Intel Foundry Services, it appears that the company is on the right track to changing strategies following years of struggles. Not only is the blue team assisting MediaTek with this new partnership, but Intel Foundry Services has also partnered with Qualcomm and Amazon Web Services (AWS) and gained a contract with the US Department of Defense. NVIDIA, one of Intel's rivals, is also currently showing interest in the company's foundry services.