Intel claims on track to regain foundry leadership from TSMC in 2025, secures "large customer" for 18A node tech

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger has delivered a presentation at the Deutsche Bank’s 2023 Technology Conference promising to restore Intel’s leadership in the chip fabrication pecking order. The company faced a series of setbacks as it tried to scale down its node technology from 14 nm to 10 nm over the past several years and watched Taiwanese-based TSMC take the lead in fabrication technology.

TSMC’s largest customer is Apple, and the US-based chip giant has had to watch on as Apple not only started the process of dropping Intel’s chips from its Mac lineup in 2020, but it also had to watch on as Apple opted to utilize TSMC’s more advanced fabrication technology to make its new custom Mac silicon.

In fact, to keep its own chips competitive, Intel has actually contracted TSMC as well to fabricate parts of its next generation ‘Meteor Lake’ chips. While the CPU tile (like a chiplet) is fabricated using the ‘Intel 4’ node (7 nm), the GPU tile will use TSMC’s 5 nm node, while the SoC tile and IOE tile will both use TSMC’s 6 nm node.