Dylan McGrath, EETimes
5/1/2012 1:19 PM EDT
In recent days, there has been much analysis and detective work devoted to figuring out what Intel's dabbling in the foundry business means as far as Intel's long-term future as a foundry player. But trying to read those tea leaves is a fool's errand. We do not yet know how involved Intel will eventually become in the foundry market. And neither does Intel.
Like my colleagues, I do not believe that Intel is poised to jump whole hog into the foundry business, competing with the likes of TSMC, UMC and Globalfoundries. The world's biggest chip vendor has in recent years dipped its toe in the foundry waters through deals with companies like Achronix, Tabula and Netronome. These firms are small, requiring production volumes that don't amount to a hill of beans compared to the mountain of Intel chips produced each day.