Intel aims to become the world’s second-largest chip manufacturer

Considering the world’s biggest semiconductor chip manufacturers, TSMC is the giant. Samsung ranks second to TSMC. Quite recently, Intel revealed its chip-making arm as a separate business. It has plans for some lofty goals. The company is aiming to overtake the position Samsung considering the chip-manufacturing business by 2030.

Previously, Intel just manufactured the chips for its own use. Last year, the company decided to revamp its strategy by making chips for others. Though, Intel is struggling for years to manufacture chips of 10nm and 7nm. In 2021, Intel Foundry Services (IFS) announced that they will expand their investments. The numbers mentioned by Intel fall nowhere when we compare them with the investment Samsung has made in the business. Additionally, Samsung and TSMC have already started working towards the development of 3nm chips. Given these facts and figures, we are unsure how Intel will overtake Samsung in the future.

Considering the chip manufacturing in Europe and North America, it is costly compared to Asia. Samsung and TSMC imply the option of Asia for chip manufacturing.  The current geopolitical situation could prove favorable for Intel.

Despite this factor, it seems quite tough for Intel to compete with Samsung. As per the latest data from market research firm TrendForce, Intel didn’t even make it to the list of top ten considering the revenue. TSMC dominates the market share by 54%, while Samsung holds around 16% of it. The recent acquisition of Intel, Tower Semiconductor, holds a small percentage i.e., 1.3% in the market share. Although, when both Intel and Tower Semiconductor are integrated can make it to the seventh or eighth positions. But it is still far from the second rank Samsung.

Intel has an aggressive plan considering its chip manufacturing process nodes. Samsung and TSMC plan to start the production of 2nm chips by 2025. In contrast, IFS aims to work on making of 18-angstrom (1.8nm) process. Though it has received some orders from Qualcomm, MediaTek, and Amazon’s AWS, Intel still has a long way to go before it can access some big companies like Apple, AMD, and Nvidia as its clients.