Intel May Outsource Chip Production To Samsung And Tsmc Soon

The outsourcing of production areas to contract manufacturers is now becoming more concrete at Intel . The company is in negotiations with both TSMC and Samsung , who would be able to manufacture the high-end CPUs.

Actually, the management of the semiconductor group still hopes that they can get their own production processes under control at the last minute and that the top processors can be manufactured at the highest level. However, it has long been clear that there is little to be said for it. Therefore, switching to the large contract manufacturers has been under discussion for some time – because they have already successfully put the required systems into operation.

However, Intel cannot simply send some construction plans to the contract manufacturers and expect them to be able to deliver after a short time. Because the high-end systems are all fully utilized. Without an expansion of the capacities, orders from a large corporation like Intel are unlikely to be able to be processed. That comes from a report by the US news agency Bloomberg.

It’ll be years

Accordingly, the negotiations with Samsung are still at an early stage. The talks with TSMC, however, should be a little further. The Taiwanese manufacturer is already preparing production capacities for Intel as a precaution and should soon be able to submit specific offers for the production of chips in 4-nanometer processes. However, time is still needed here too.

Because TSMC had already made it clear that the new N4 production will generally only be at a level that enables mass production at the end of 2022. Before that, however, a series of tests for Intel could also be carried out on the 5-nanometer lines. Before 2023, however, Intel cannot expect to be able to deliver the required chips in large quantities, even with the involvement of the contract manufacturers.