Intel is one of the biggest chip giants in the industry, and for good reason. After all, the vaunted tech company constantly produces high-quality products for hardware enthusiasts to enjoy. However, as an organization that prides itself on in-house component manufacturing, the idea that the Arrow Lake generation of CPUs may be made entirely by external manufacturing group TSMC is not a comforting thought for Intel higher-ups.
Intel‘s CFO, David Zinsner recently spoke with Morgan Stanley via a telecom conference about how the company was faring. The conference’s full transcript, posted by Seeking Alpha, included Zinsner’s comments on how Intel is uncomfortable with its reliance on external wafer manufacturing. “I think probably, we are a little bit heavier than we want to be in terms of external wafer manufacturing versus internal, but we’re always going to use external foundries for wafers,” Zinsner said.
Intel uncomfortable with how reliant it is on TSMC for chip manufacturing
The company currently outsources much of its chip-making to TSMC. TSMC is one of the largest semiconductor companies in the business, with clients like AMD, NVIDIA, Apple, and Qualcomm. The foundries at TSMC churn out more silicon than any other. Intel is one of their biggest clients, and not only does TSMC make the process nodes for them, but also a majority of the rest of some of its best chips.
If Intel is looking to return to its roots and manufacture more chips completely in-house, then it could spell change for both companies. While the relationship between Intel and TSMC is great, as Zinsner says, in the coming years, if Intel decides to switch to more internal manufacturing, then competition between the two will become fiercer. It could change how the new generation of Intel, like the Arrow Lake and Panther Lake, come out.
However, it will be quite some time before Intel can produce their chips mainly in their own foundries. That’s if the company even wants to switch away from relying on TSMC at all. Intel is planning on releasing more CPUs and GPUs this year for their new generation, and TSMC will have their hands full with producing them. Intel won’t be able to switch up the entire manufacturing process in such a short time. If Intel is serious about producing its own hardware in-house again, they’re going to have a while before that dream is a reality.
