According to a statement that Intel shared, the agreement is designed to help MediaTek build a more balanced, resilient supply chain through the addition of a new foundry partner with significant capacity in the United States and Europe. Last year, Intel had also announced a similar partnership with Qualcomm as well.
Up until last year, Intel used to design and manufacture its own chips. Last year, the company decided to open up its foundry facilities to other SoC designers and launched Intel Foundry Services.
IFS offers a broad manufacturing platform with technologies optimized for high performance, low power and always-on connectivity built on a roadmap that spans production-proven three-dimensional FinFET transistors to next-generation breakthroughs.
MediaTek plans to use Intel process technologies to manufacture multiple chips for a range of smart edge devices.
“As one of the world’s leading fabless chip designers powering more than 2 billion devices a year, MediaTek is a terrific partner for IFS as we enter our next phase of growth,” said IFS President Randhir Thakur.
“We have the right combination of advanced process technology and geographically diverse capacity to help MediaTek deliver the next billion connected devices across a range of applications,” Thakur added.
NS Tsai, corporate senior vice president of Platform Technology & Manufacturing Operations at MediaTek, said, “MediaTek has long adopted a multi-sourcing strategy. We have an existing 5G data card business partnership with Intel, and now extend our relationship to manufacturing smart edge devices through Intel Foundry Services. With its commitment to major capacity expansions, IFS provides value to MediaTek as we seek to create a more diversified supply chain.”
IFS has a major advantage as of now, because of the fact that they are based in the western hemisphere. With a majority of the current silicon manufacturing coming out of the eastern hemisphere from countries like Taiwan, China, and Thailand, issues such as the ongoing chip shortages were inevitable, especially when something as disruptive as the current pandemic would have taken place.
Intel plans on getting ahead of the situation and helping companies in diversifying their portfolios by offering its services in the US and Europe. The company has already announced plans to expand at existing sites in the US and also plans to add new manufacturing and designing sites in Ohio in the United States, and Germany.