Intel will be the company in charge of manufacturing chips for MediaTek, according to an announcement made by both companies. This agreement is one of the most relevant in the semiconductor industry, as it seeks to establish a strategy to face great rivals such as TSMC and Samsung.
“The agreement is designed to help MediaTek build a more balanced and resilient supply chain by bringing in a new foundry partner with significant capability in the United States and Europe,” Intel said in a press release.
The decision to join is important because MediaTek is one of the largest providers of processors for smartphones in the world, especially the mid-range ones, and is one of the main rivals of Qualcomm, so with this association Intel will be in charge of manufacture a range of device chips, though which ones were not specified.
According to data from Counterpoint Research in the first quarter of the year, MediaTek had 38% of the smartphone application processor market, being the largest company in the segment.
While MediaTek has the largest presence in the world of smartphones, it is also found in a wide range of devices, such as Chromebooks, tablets, medical equipment or even cars, so Intel could enter any of these areas before phones. smart.
Since taking over as CEO of Intel, Pat Gelsinger has stressed the importance of reinvigorating the semiconductor foundry business to break the dominance established by Asian rivals TSMC and Samsung.
The impact of this decision has been seen in different areas of the industry, since in addition to manufacturing MediaTek chips, Intel has an important portfolio of clients, including Amazon and Qualcomm, which does not have its own manufacturing methods and with which it established an agreement in 2021.
ARM is another of Intel’s partners for which it is going to manufacture chips and despite the fact that the supply crisis has affected the company’s business, it has announced investments of more than 50,000 million dollars to build factories both in the United States and in Europe.
Even in February this year, Intel paid more than $5 billion to buy Tower Semiconductor, a little-known Israeli company that will be strategic for the third-party chip manufacturing business.
Randhir Thakur, president of Intel Foundry Services (IFS), said, “As one of the world’s leading factory-free chip designers powering more than 2 billion devices a year, MediaTek is an excellent partner for IFS as we enter in our next phase of growth.”
Currently, TSMC and Samsung dominate the chip manufacturing industry, with these two companies accounting for more than 70% of global foundry revenue, according to data from analysis firm TrendForce.
