Intel Foundry Operating Model Shown with Path to Process Leadership
Intel today showed its recast financials using the Intel Foundry Operating Model. This is a big deal because it, in theory, is going to allow its products business (the one that makes Core, Xeon, and more) to be more competitive, while also getting serious about Intel Foundry operations.
We covered the plan to do this in our Intel Foundry Model Announced, but Intel has made it official with an 8K that included the company’s financials recast into new operating units (Altera was in there too.) This may not seem like a big deal, but Intel has been looking to woo 3rd party customers for its Foundry business, and this split makes the Foundry and the Intel Products group somewhat separate businesses.
With the new model, Intel Foundry will sell products to Intel Products. Intel Products, can choose to source packages from Intel Foundry or other parties like TSMC. Given we are in a chiplet world already, it might be more accurate to say Intel Products can source from a number of manufacturers and then put the pieces together to make parts. Something to keep in mind however, is that process nodes and products can often have long lifespans. As a result, a lot of products from Intel and Altera will likely be fabbed at Intel.
Intel says that this change will help as it charts a path back to leadership. We will soon start to see Intel 18A where it will be roughly on par with TSMC, but it says 14A will be ahead of TSMC. Notably here the change is also that “mobile” becomes a target segment.
