What you need to know
- Intel announced a new partnership with Arm today that will see semiconductor designers make low-power chips using Intel Foundry Services.
- The partnership will focus on mobile SoC designs at first but will later expand to include chips for the automotive industry, internet of things, data centers, the aerospace industry, and government applications.
- Customers that use Arm's designs will be able to use Intel's 18A process tech for manufacturing.
Intel Foundry Services was announced in March 2021, much to the surprise of some within the industry due to the fact that Intel's new service produces chips for other companies. Now Arm, one of the biggest names when it comes to chips, is on board.
Intel and Arm jointly announced that chip designers will be able to build low-power compute system-on-chips (SoCs) on the Intel 18A process. The initial focus of the partnership is mobile devices, but it has the potential to expand into several other industries, including the automotive industry, internet of things, data centers, the aerospace industry, and government applications.
The Intel 18A process allows for better power and performance. Building chips on it will also see manufacturing in Intel's plants in the United States and Europe.
"Intel’s collaboration with Arm will expand the market opportunity for IFS and open up new options and approaches for any fabless company that wants to access best-in-class CPU IP and the power of an open system foundry with leading-edge process technology," said Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger.
The goal of Intel Foundry Services is to become the world's second largest foundry by revenue, which would place it solely behind TSMC. To do so, IFS would have to surpass Samsung, which sits at number two at the moment. To reach that goal, Intel will have to work together with several large companies, including some names that people may not have initially expected.
MediaTek announced that it would use Intel Foundry Services back in July 2022. Qualcomm and Amazon were among the first clients for IFS.
The addition of Arm to Intel's partners is massive. Rene Hass, CEO of Arm, highlighted that Arm processors power hundreds of billions of devices.
