New acquisition takes Intel another step closer to pulling off its master plan
Intel prepares to splash the cash, yet again
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Intelhas announced its intention to acquire Tower Semiconductor, a chip foundry that specializes in analog semiconductors for emerging markets such as automotive and aerospace.
The cash-only deal will see Intel pay $53 per share for Tower, which equates to a total value of roughly $5.4 billion.
Intel says it expects the acquisition to close within twelve months, but the deal will still need to receive the green light from both regulators and Tower stockholders.
Intel’s IDM 2.0 strategy
In early 2021, Intel made public a reworking of its integrated device manufacturing (IDM) strategy, which the company called IDM 2.0. The broad objective is to position Intel at the bleeding edge of chip design and manufacturing, during a period of unprecedented demand.
Off the back of the announcement, the firm launched Intel Foundry Services (IFS), a distinctarmdedicated to manufacturing chips for third-party customers, in the same way as pure-play foundry TSMC.
In support of its IDM 2.0 aspirations, Intel has recently made a series of investments designed to help scale up its chip manufacturing capacity and capabilities.
Intel is officially in the bitcoin mining business now>Intel to invest $1bn in RISC-V processors and other innovations>Intel to splash $20bn on chip factory the size of a village
For example, the company announced it willspend $20 billionon a state-of-the-art 1,000-acre chip manufacturing facility in Ohio, USA, which will house as many as eight separate fabs once complete.
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Last week, meanwhile, Intel surprised commentators by revealing a $1 billion investment in support of companiesworking on open source RISC-V processorsand other chip innovations. The idea is to lay the foundations for modular products that make use of multiple instruction set architectures (ISAs), from Intel’s own x86 to Arm and RISC-V.
Intel says the Tower acquisition is another piece of the same puzzle, expanding the company’s manufacturing capacity and broadening the IFS portfolio with process technologies for specialist but high-growth markets such as automotive, medical and aerospace.
“Tower’s specialty technology portfolio, geographic reach, deep customer relationships and services-first operations will help scale Intel’s foundry services and advance our goal of becoming a major provider of foundry capacity globally,” said Pat Gelsinger, Intel CEO.
“This deal will enable Intel to offer a compelling breadth of leading-edge nodes and differentiated specialty technologies on mature nodes - unlocking new opportunities for existing and future customers in an era of unprecedented demand for semiconductors.”
Joel Khalili is the News and Features Editor at TechRadar Pro, covering cybersecurity, data privacy, cloud, AI, blockchain, internet infrastructure, 5G, data storage and computing. He’s responsible for curating our news content, as well as commissioning and producing features on the technologies that are transforming the way the world does business.
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