Home » IC Design » Disrupt or Be Disrupted: Intel and the Great Semiconductor Fab Game

Find out where Intel stands in its bid to compete with fab business behemoths TSMC and Samsung.

Intel’s foray into the foundry business has been making waves for some time, and the latest episode relates to its fab expansion in Oregon. While the chipmaker has been announcing one fab project after another in the United States and abroad, what’s the actual game plan? Will Intel be able to catch up to TSMC and Samsung in foundry services? Is there a correlation between the recent chip shortage and Intel’s ambitious fab plans?

However, before we delve into answers to the above questions, here is a quick recap of the prevailing circumstances.

For a start, Intel’s move to expand the foundry industry comes at an especially opportune juncture. Over the past few years, the semiconductor universe has had a crash course in just how tenuous business operations can be when unexpected world events suddenly emerge. Now, amid the war in Ukraine, the past few weeks have only made that even clearer as international relationships have become more strained and uncertain.

10/17-19 EAC