Intel is chasing foundry customers in Samsung's backyard

New rumors say that Intel CEO Patrick Gelsinger met with senior executives from South Korea last year. The CEO supposedly revealed Intel's foundry plans and offered fabless South Korean chip startups incentives to partner up and use Intel's foundry capabilities and new 18A process node (via The Elec).

The US chipmaker has been gunning for the 2nd place in the chip manufacturing business for the past couple of years. The company says it will overtake Samsung Foundry and become the second-largest foundry, right behind TSMC, before 2030.

18A chip mass manufacturing starts this year

Intel announced its 14A (equivalent of 1.4nm) chip manufacturing technologies last week, and the company is planning to commercialize 14A-based chips by 2027.

Until that happens, Intel appears to have strengthened its plans to start mass manufacturing 18A (equivalent of 1.8nm) chips before the end of 2024.

Meanwhile, Samsung Foundry is trying to move from 4nm to GAA (Gate-All-Around) 3nm manufacturing this year before upgrading to 2nm process nodes in 2025.

With Intel seemingly having the upper hand, the company is reportedly attempting to win fabless chip customers from South Korea right from under Samsung's nose.

It's unclear what incentives Intel might have in store for potential 18A node clients in South Korea, but outside of Samsung's home country, the company is said to have secured orders worth $15 billion for its future 14A process node. The US giant appears to have been very successful at signing up new fabless customers, which could be a reason to worry for Samsung.

Then again, Samsung recently won its first 2nm chip order from Japan's PFN, and the company may have also received orders for 2nm chips from Qualcomm.

At present, Samsung is the 2nd largest chip manufacturer behind TSMC. But it's becoming increasingly evident that the Korean tech giant will face fierce competition from Intel moving forward, and the next few years could be crucial to its Foundry business.

Image Credit: Samsung