Intel is reportedly planning to outsource more of its Arrow Lake CPU orders to TSMC, as Team Blue is no longer confident in the capabilities of its foundry division.
Intel Ramps Up Arrow Lake Outsourcing To TSMC To Maintain Market Competitiveness & Cover "Sluggish" IFS Performance
Team Blue's business isn't in the best conditions, not just in the consumer segment but in areas such as data center and AI markets. Intel hasn't managed to make the best out of the resources at its disposal, so the firm is now eying towards outsourcing its key orders to TSMC, given that the Taiwan giant is way superior in semiconductor quality. A report by Ctee now claims that Intel has ramped up orders placed at TSMC for Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake SKUs, as Team Blue is determined to maintain leadership in the CPU markets.
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Intel's Arrow Lake "Core Ultra 200" series SKUs are pivotal in the fact that this is the first occasion where the manufacturer decided to opt for an external foundry, simply due to the under-performing IFS, along with Intel's commitment to provide a hefty competition to the likes of AMD, which is already leveraging the capabilities of the Taiwan giant. Intel's unique tile configuration, along with the use of Foveros 3D packaging technology, is a testament that the firm doesn't look to be held back at all, and the transition to TSMC portrays a similar sentiment as well.
The increased outsourcing to TSMC, along with Intel Foundry not showing satisfactory results, does raise questions on how Intel plans to take its chip business moving ahead since, by the looks of it, Team Blue is now turning into a dominant TSMC customer, especially with the expected integration of TSMC's 3nm process in their next-gen Falcon Shores AI GPUs. A more probable move here would likely be a sell-off of the manufacturing unit, given that Intel is now determined to partner
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