Intel CEO says foundry business is doing great

Intel CEO Paul Otellini revealed that the company's emerging foundry business is coming along very well. Officially, the Intel Custom Foundry division has two customers, Achronix and Tabula, but the chip giant hinted that it has a number of other semiconductor chip designers among its clients. At least for now, the names of the other clients remain a secret.

“I would be a foundry for strategic relationships and not to enable our competitors. […] We are running a small foundry business, we are building up our capabilities and do not want to compete directly with TSMC, that is not our business model. For the right types of products and not to enable my competitors, I would certainly consider [making chips for others]. There is a lot of stuff in the pipeline,” said Paul Otellini, chief executive officer of Intel, at Sanford Bernstein technology conference earlier this week.

Apparently, Intel Custom Foundry has much more customers than anyone would think. Moreover, at least some of those customers are already manufacturing their products at other contract makers of semiconductors.

“As you know it takes a while to move your designs over, to design them under our process, for us to be able to bring them in-house and so forth and our foundry customers are not going to announce that they have moved until they have moved because it would hurt them at their current suppliers,” said Mr. Otellini.

Full details at X-bit Labs.