According to a report from Digitimes, Intel is yet to sign any major sub-5nm outsourcing deal with TSMC despite multiple rumors. As things stand right now, the Taiwanese foundry doesn’t expect Team Blue to play a meaningful role in its development in the near future. Till now, we’ve seen multiple reports claiming that Intel is looking to outsource its Core-class products to TSMC, most notably the 13th Gen post-Alder Lake-S lineup.
The rumors state that while the Core i3 chips will be fabbed on the 5nm EUV process, the higher-end Core i5 and i7 parts will leverage the 3nm node. We believe that if Intel indeed chooses to outsource the Alder Lake successor, the entire lineup will be fabbed on the 5nm node. Producing the same family on two different nodes from the same foundry is an unlikely scenario. It is also possible that Intel will opt for the 6nm node to cut costs, but that would be uncharacteristic of the new CEO.
The other possible scenario is that Intel will fabricate a few select high-demand models on TSMC’s 5nm node while the flagship products will leverage Intel’s best node (preferably the 7nm process).
As for the Xe-HPG graphics cards, the production will be handled by TSMC on its already mature 7nm node (N7P/N7+). Since these products are slated to launch this year itself, I see no other alternative. Samsung is already serving NVIDIA and its yields are poor enough as it is.
