TSMC Will Not Take Over Intel Operations, Observers Say
TSMC is considering taking a controlling stake in Intel Foundry as urged by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration, according to a Bloomberg report last week, citing one person close to the matter.
A few days later, the Wall Street Journal reported that Broadcom is interested in buying Intel Products if a potential investor takes over Intel Foundry.
Intel and TSMC declined to comment on the matter.
The reported plan to pair TSMC with Intel
will fizzle, according to Handel Jones, CEO of International Business Strategies (IBS), which advises electronics companies and investors.
“The U.S. government wants the U.S. to have large capacity in the U.S. at under 2 nanometers, and this is appropriate. The key is the level of commitment that TSMC will make to capacity in the U.S. TSMC has no interest in the wafer-fab facilities of Intel. We talk with both companies on an almost real-time basis.”
Taking on Intel Foundry would be a “battleship anchor” on TSMC’s bottom line, TechInsights vice chair Dan Hutcheson told EE Times.
“There is no reason for TSMC to help Intel, other than the uncertainty around President Trump’s ask. Intel can manage its own fabs, and 18A is coming along nicely. What Intel needs is to fill its fabs.”
There is no chance of an agreement, Hutcheson said.
“It’s only good in the interest of Intel’s self-inflicted financial situation. It hurts America’s national-security interests. It is not in TSMC’s interests. Why save your drowning chief competitor when you’ll have a monopoly once they’re gone?”
Paul Triolo, who advises global tech clients at Washington, D.C.-based Albright Stonebridge Group, said: TSMC had to acquiesce to Washington before when it stopped selling chips to China’s Huawei, agreed to build fabs in Arizona and now considers helping Intel.
“TSMC is in the most delicate of geopolitical positions and has to answer the phone when Washington calls, however bad the request could be.”
“Who decides which customers use which foundry services? This is not a simple question, as it would involve a lot more collaboration between Intel, TSMC and leading design houses. Trump administration officials have not had enough time to look at the issue in sufficient depth, and this effort is very preliminary.”
The Trump administration’s overarching aim is for more U.S. investment from TSMC, according to C.Y. Huang, president of FCC Partners, an investment bank based in Taiwan.
The administration will urge TSMC to increase its currently planned $65 billion investment in two fabs in Arizona to at least $200 billion and five fabs, Huang said in a post on LinkedIn. That would include a push for TSMC to move its CoWoS advanced-packaging technology to the U.S., he added. In Taiwan, TSMC uses CoWoS to make AI chips for Nvidia and a handful of other chip designers.
https://www.eetimes.com/tsmc-will-not-take-over-intel-operations-observers-say/