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Intel To Reportedly Outsource More “Arrow Lake” Orders To TSMC; Team Blue No Longer Confident In Its Foundry Business

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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.

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 extensively with TSMC.

Team Blue's huge financial ambitions with Intel Foundry have apparently "stabbed" them in the back since operating costs have soared to new heights, with profits declining rapidly. Intel outsourcing orders to TSMC simply means higher costs, and to combat it, Team Blue will take decisive steps, which might prove to be surprising for some.

 
Outsource more what? Arrow Lake is made at TSMC and that is that.
I find it surprising Intel would want to increase orders of it considering the launch flopped.

There were claims 20A would be used for Arrow Lake at one time but with the cancellation of mass production in that node TSMC is the only supplier of it.
 
Ridiculous. I highly doubt Intel has two versions of this chip nor would they port it between the two fabs for multi sourcing.

"Muhammad Zuhair is dedicated to decoding the intricacies of PC hardware, presenting unique analyses that sidestep technical complexities. His mission is to make this fascinating content accessible and enjoyable for everyone."

Stay in your lane Muhammand.
 
There are mainly 3 dies at TSMC N3B for now and i think intel will move to N3E like other later
one for Lunar Lake
A 6+8 die for ARL that is used in U5 245K and will be used in ARL-H Laptop
A 8+16 ARL-S die for desktop and HX laptop
 
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.

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 extensively with TSMC.

Team Blue's huge financial ambitions with Intel Foundry have apparently "stabbed" them in the back since operating costs have soared to new heights, with profits declining rapidly. Intel outsourcing orders to TSMC simply means higher costs, and to combat it, Team Blue will take decisive steps, which might prove to be surprising for some.

Intel outsourcing to TSMC will not increase costs at the end of the day. Once TD costs, overhead are added to the wafer cost and packaging cost the total unit cost is higher for Intel than for buying TSMC... the CFO has stated that. It could change if Intel foundry can spread the cost across more products and customers, but Intel doesnt have external foundry volume committed to achieve that yet. All of this is as predicted in 2021. Maybe 2027 looks better?
 
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