Intel may increase the queue for TSMC's advanced technological processes

More than once, Intel representatives have mentioned the help of contractors as one of the measures to combat the shortage of their own capacities, and Samsung was even awarded the title of the official partner of the processor giant in this context. Meanwhile, the history of cooperation between Intel and TSMC is measured in decades, and the capabilities of this contract manufacturer should not be written off in this situation either.

This week the site took on the well-worn topic of cooperation between Intel and TSMC DigiTimes, who reported that the ratio of supply and demand for services for the production of 7-nm products remains unfavorable for TSMC customers. The source explains that the lead time for such orders on the TSMC assembly line still exceeds six months, and the situation is unlikely to improve until the end of this year. Moreover, it may even get worse, since Intel will entrust this company with the production of some of its products using some “advanced” technical processes.

As a matter of fact, even in Intel’s use of TSMC’s facilities for contract manufacturing of 7-nm products, there is nothing fantastic. The Mobileye division has long been planning to launch the production of its specialized processors for automatic vehicle control systems using this scheme. The TSMC pipeline will be able to be shared with other Intel products: programmable matrices or specialized computing accelerators, for example.

Let us remember that Intel is not interested in transferring only its most complex products to contractors, which are now central processors, and in the near future will also be graphics processors. It is the latter that will be, pardon the pun, the first 7nm Intel products that the company will begin to produce independently, but this will happen by the end of 2021. Later, 7nm Intel central processors for server use will appear, and the company will also produce them in-house. One of the types of products for which Intel will not hesitate to outsource orders is chipsets, but the urgent need to transfer them to 7-nm technology will not arise for a long time.

Source: 3dnews.ru