Intel will manufacture chips for Taiwanese chip designer MediaTek, making the latter the first major silicon customer for Intel's revitalized contract chip manufacturing business.
The American x86 giant is expected to announce MediaTek as a marquee customer for Intel Foundry Services Monday, more than a year after the chipmaker
rebooted the business to compete with Asian foundry giants TSMC and Samsung as part of CEO Pat Gelsinger's
comeback plan.
MediaTek was the
fourth largest fabless chip designer in 2021, larger than AMD, but smaller than Broadcom, Nvidia, and Qualcomm. Its revenue was $17.6 billion last year, a 61 percent annual increase, largely thanks to smartphone phone chip sales. As well as Android handsets, MediaTek also designs chips for cars, Chromebooks, tablets, networking products, plus IoT and smart home devices.
Designed in the East, manufactured in the West
Intel said the arrangement will give MediaTek a "more balanced, resilient supply chain" by giving the Taiwanese company "significant" manufacturing capacity in the United States and Europe.
MediaTek executive NS Tsai said the move, which will involve chips for smart edge products, is part of its "multi-sourcing strategy." This means the company will continue to use rival foundries such as TSMC for other products.
"With its commitment to major capacity expansions, [Intel Foundry Services] provides value to MediaTek as we seek to create a more diversified supply chain," said Tsai, head of the company's platform technology and manufacturing operations. "We look forward to building a long-term partnership to serve the fast-growing demand for our products from customers across the globe."
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