Monday, July 25th 2022
Intel and MediaTek Form Foundry Partnership
Intel and MediaTek today announced a strategic partnership to manufacture chips using Intel Foundry Services' (IFS) advanced process technologies. The agreement is designed to help MediaTek build a more balanced, resilient supply chain through the addition of a new foundry partner with significant capacity in the United States and Europe. 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."
NS Tsai, corporate senior vice president of Platform Technology & Manufacturing Operations at MediaTek, said, "MediaTek has long adopted a multi-sourcing strategy. We have an existing 5G data card business partnership with Intel, and now extend our relationship to manufacturing smart edge devices through Intel Foundry Services. With its commitment to major capacity expansions, IFS provides value to MediaTek as we seek to create a more diversified supply chain. We look forward to building a long-term partnership to serve the fast-growing demand for our products from customers across the globe."
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.
Source:
Intel
"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."
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.
15 Comments on Intel and MediaTek Form Foundry Partnership
Now hell has frozen for sure and things like that happen. Mediatek and Intel in one bed. Meditel or Intek? :D
This leaves only the likes of Mediatek, Broadcom etc using Intel's fabs for lower performing SoC's.
www.techpowerup.com/293224/nvidia-could-use-intels-foundry-service-for-chip-manufacturing
Also, lower performing SoCs as you call them, sell in much much larger quantities than anything Intel makes for itself.
Besides, things like WiFi chips, are never on cutting edge nodes, as it's really hard to shrink the RF end.
Even Intel's Ponte Vecchio that is still not out is only partially made at their own fabs.
If Intel becomes more competitive in the future it could happen so im not ruling that out. The SoC's may be higher volume but they're also much lower margin.
That is what i meant regarding Wi-Fi etc. Since Intel's node is not cutting edge (atleast not by all metrics) then things like Wi-Fi chips may actually be a good fit.
The big issue is that none of these companies are going to make existing designs with Intel, as it would simply cost too much to convert a design made for TSMC or Samsung to make it work in Intel's fabs, so it'll be at least a year until anything new will be ready to be manufactured by Intel.
I suggest also to decouple the chip design from the manufacturing node. Although intel chips are power hungry, we don’t exactly know what is the bigger contributor: process node or intel x86 Core design. For instance, if Golden Cove was built on TSMC 7nm vs Intel 7 would it consume as much power? Another consideration would be: would it clock as high?
There are so many considerations. If mediatek who works with TSMC looked at Intel’s technology offerings and price thinks it is a good commercial decision to enter into business with intel, then perhaps there’s something there.
Would be very interesting to see the types of 3rd party chips built on IFS, will they be ARM-based or will they be x86 based or RISC-v or some combination of the three? Rather than build modems and all the other distractions, IFS could be a good offering from intel. Especially with the UCIe tech that’s coming.
They make a lot of flashy promises but most of these have come to market late due to mismanagement.
At least Intel have foundry's to sell manufacturing to others, unlike AMD and Nvidia that have to get in a queue with a begging plate.
The biggest begger is Intel itself being a 3rd class customer for a few milllion GPU's at TSMC. So much for their superior foundries.
Not pro Intel nor pro AMD, just against anti Intel usual crap on here. I don't go into every AMD related thread and post anti AMD crap, but there is always someone, usually an AMD user doing it in most Intel related threads.
3rd class, lol shows what you think you know.
We've all seen how well their fabs have fared over the years. 10nm became a meme. They were in the lead in the Sandy Bridge era but got lazy and squandered it.