“Intel Corp would consider making chips for rivals, but any proposal to use its advanced manufacturing technology to make processors based on a competing architecture would trigger an ‘in-depth discussion,'” Paul Sandle reports for Reuters.
“Intel views its massive lead in manufacturing know-how as a key asset and opening its factories up to competitors would be a major shift for the industry. ‘There are certain customers that would be interesting to us and certain customers that wouldn’t,’ Chief Financial Officer Stacy Smith told journalists after an investor event in London on Thursday,” Sandle reports. “‘If Apple or Sony came to us and said ‘I want to do a product that involves your IA (Intel architecture) core and put some of my IP around it,’ I wouldn’t blink,’ [Smith said]. “‘That would be fantastic business for us. Then you get into the middle ground of ‘I don’t want it to be a IA core, I want it to be my own custom-designed core,’ and then you are only getting the manufacturing margin, (and) that would be a much more in-depth discussion and analysis.'”
“Smith said Intel had signed some ‘tiny’ foundry deals in the last year, mainly to gain access to new technology, but a proposal from the likes of Apple was ‘not in the works today,’ and the prospect of making chips for others was not driving Intel’s investment in capacity,” Sandle reports.
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Lava_Head_UK” for the heads up.]