Despite rumors of stiff competition between the largest PC CPU manufacturer and the largest Asian foundry, the reality is that everything points to Intel could become TSMC VIP client in the next years. And not just any one, but one of the importance that Apple has at the moment. What is behind all this?
Commercial relationships are so interconnected and complex that what we could call cooperative competition often occurs, which means that two companies that compete in one part of the market may be collaborating on points of common interest between them. This is the case between Intel and TSMC where the former is going to become an important customer of the latter in a couple of years.
Intel as a TSMC VIP customer
Just as there was a race between the Soviet Union and the United States in space exploration, we are currently experiencing one in the world of semiconductor manufacturing between Intel and TSMC. Little by little the number of companies that can afford to design chips under the most advanced nodes is decreasing.
The next big node in the PC is the 5nm, which we have already seen being deployed in Post PC devices, but the number of TSMC partner companies that have made the jump are few. We have the cases of AMD, Apple, MediaTek, Qualcomm and NVIDIA as the best known.
However, after 5 nm comes 3 nm, of which we know that Apple will be TSMC’s preferred customer, however, the surprising thing is that Intel will be the second largest customer of the Taiwan smelter by 2023 and will do so by adopting the 3nm node. For the manufacture of the Intel Core? Clearly not, and although Intel will become a VIP client of TSMC, they will not close their own factories.
Why will Intel use the Taiwanese?
Given that a few months ago Intel announced that it was going to rent the use of its chip factories to third parties, something they had never done before, the first conclusion reached is that they are going to compete against TSMC. If we add to this how Pat Gelsinger is lobbying for huge funding from the US administration, the clearest conclusion is that they intend to compete against the founding of nationalist China.
That is why news such as that Intel will become a VIP client for TSMC in 2023 It can be shocking. In principle, it makes no sense for you to start manufacturing your designs in the foundry that will be your rival, it almost sounds like the Coca-Cola bottling plant is producing drinks for Pepsi, but in the midst of all this we forget one difference. between TSMC and Intel and it is none other than the former does not design chips.
Intel is today the only hardware company that designs and manufactures chips within it and the demand for its own chips is such that it is forced to outsource part of its production to other foundries. A recent example is GPUs Intel ARC Alchemist that will be manufactured by TSMC under the node of 6 nm, which already makes Intel a VIP customer of TSMC not for 2022, but for 2023. And why is this happening? Well, due to the fact that a good part of the production of the company founded by Gordon Moore goes to its CPUs, where its sales are massive due to its enormous market share.
So their GPUs are the first step with TSMC and there are already rumors that CPUs could hit the shopping cart if the sales volume remains that high. Do youCore, Pentium or Celeron? There are no confirmations in this regard, so we will have to wait to know the strategy.
