rumor mill: Intel has been outsourcing its Arc GPU manufacturing to TSMC since 2022. According to recent speculation by a well-known investment bank, Intel could significantly increase its dependence on the Taiwanese foundry in the coming years.
According to a quote from the Taiwanese media company Commercial Times, analysts at Goldman Sachs assume that Intel will probably expand the product Outsourced to TSMC in 2024 and 2025. The “total addressable market” for Intel’s outsourcing deals is expected to be $18.6 billion in 2024 and $19.4 billion in 2025, the analysts said. It’s likely that TSMC will receive $5.6 billion in manufacturing orders from Intel next year and $9.7 billion in 2025.
Goldman Sachs’ assumptions appear to be based on the challenges Intel has faced with smaller and more advanced manufacturing processes since the 10-nanometer node. Additionally, the US chipmaker recently opted to establish a “foundry-like” relationship between its manufacturing groups and its internal product business units, analysts noted.
Opinion: Is Intel about to turn?
Semiconductor industry analyst Andrew Lu expects this relationship to evolve. Intel’s chipmaker competes directly with TSMC, while the design department works hard to break into the increasingly competitive semiconductor space. Intel’s chip designers seem keen to work more closely with the Taiwanese manufacturer.
Lu even speculates on a possible split within Intel’s competing businesses, predicting that the Santa Clara-based chipmaker could split into two separate companies in the coming years. Intel is increasingly adopting chiplet design for its upcoming CPUs, with some chiplet components expected to be outsourced to external foundries by the end of 2023.
Speculations aside, it’s likely that all of TSMC’s production capacity has already been reserved for 2024 and 2025. Should Intel plan to outsource a significant portion of its semiconductor products to the Taiwanese company, the deals would have been finalized by now.
Assuming the numbers provided by Goldman Sachs analysts — $5.6 billion and $9.7 billion — are correct, Intel’s orders could grow about 6.4% and 9.4%, respectively of TSMC’s total revenue for 2024 and 2025, respectively. However, despite the significant sums involved, neither Intel nor TSMC have publicly confirmed or denied these claims.