MediaTek will have chips produced by Intel

Chip designer MediaTek will have chips produced by Intel’s new foundry division. The two companies announced this on Monday. In this way, MediaTek says it wants to expand its supply chain.

MediaTek plans to produce chips for “various smart edge devices” at Intel Foundry Services. The company currently manufactures most of its chips at Taiwanese market leader TSMC, but the partnership with Intel aims to expand its supply chain with additional capacity in the US and Europe, where Intel is already active and is currently working on capacity expansions.

Intel does not write in its press release on which processes MediaTek will produce its chips. According to Reuters news agency this concerns the Intel 16 node, a further development of the former Intel 22FFL, which is optimized for low-power applications. The first chips would be produced in the next 18 to 24 months. The two companies are not sharing any financial details about the deal. It is therefore not known how many chips Intel will produce for MediaTek. The Taiwanese chip designer does indicate that it will continue to work with TSMC for more advanced chips using more modern processes.

Intel is a new player in the foundry market of manufacturers who produce chips for other companies. The chipmaker was traditionally an integrated device manufacturer, with which the company mainly designed and produced chips for itself. Last year, however, new CEO Pat Gelsinger announced Intel’s new IDM 2.0 strategy, which will see the company produce chips for other companies to compete with market leaders TSMC and Samsung. Previously, smartphone chip maker Qualcomm and Amazon Web Services expressed interest in Intel’s foundry services. Nvidia is also considering having chips produced at Intel.