It is an open secret that Intel Things are not doing well. After last year’s financial catastrophe and the “retirement” of its CEO, in the company they are desperately looking for ways to be profitable again. Now, according to industry sources, Intel is wearing acquisition offers that could divide the company into two Halls: Product and manufacturing. And of course, TSMC and Broadcom They are already on the stalking waiting for their time to take a slice in an operation that could become a new soap opera of the hardware industry.
Apparently, and according to The Wall Street Journal, Broadcom has already started informal conversations with the company, while TSMC would be considering gathering an investor consortium to acquire Intel manufacturing facilities.
Intel divided into two? Sell its manufacture to TSMC? Unlikely
The truth is that this last part (that of selling its factories to TSMC) believes that it is unlikely, since intel factories are currently one of the large pillars of the company, more especially for the chip supply chain of states United … and with the plan in which Donald Trump is since his arrival, it seems almost impossible to allow something like that. And, without going any further, Intel is responsible for manufacturing Custom chips for the US Department of Defense, so we would tell you (this is personal opinion) that the Trump government will not consent to sell these factories To a foreign company.
But of course, this news comes right in one of the worst moments for Intel. As we have mentioned before, the company faces serious economic difficulties, but this adds to important manufacturing difficulties, such as a loss of about $ 13.4 billion in the manufacturing segment during 2024 and an important erosion in its market share With regard to processors for ia. The price of Intel shares has fallen around 60% from the maximum it reached in 2021, which is not to say little.
Thus, we doubt that this happens. Of course, in TSMC they will be rubbing their hands in the face of the possibility, but of course we do not see it plausible … not with Trump in power.
Intel will manufacture its own GPU, it will not resort to TSMC
The previous news adds to a new, completely different one. And Intel is preparing his next spit of graphics cards dedicated with his new architecture, which they have called XE3P. It is a “remastered” version of the previous one (XE3), and what changes this time is that Intel intends to do without any subcontract for manufacturing, including of course TSMC. This reaffirms what we have commented in the previous section: Intel wants to have more control over what it produces, and does not want to depend on foreign companies.
During the details of this new GPU called “Celestial”, in principle it was going to be launched with two variants, a more humble based on the Intel 3 manufacturing node, and a more advanced one using the chips at 3 NM of TSMC.
However, if Intel decides to take the entire manufacturing process to their own facilities, it is quite likely that both versions will have the Intel 3 manufacturing node, and even later they could go to the Intel 18A node. This would keep the options for Intel open, but namely what will happen to the end, because as we have mentioned before, governments (and more Trump’s) are quite prone to put the noses in these matters.
In theory, Intel’s new GPU was going to debut as part of the Panther Lake portable processor intact … for now.
