Intel’s foundry business may be about to leap forward. The stock climbed 2% early Monday after news broke about chip packaging talks with SK Hynix, which could bring in another major customer just days after a preliminary manufacturing deal with Apple. Here’s what these deals could mean for Intel’s foundry plans and whether the stock’s strong performance can keep going.
Intel has spent years investing in its foundry unit but hasn’t secured a major outside customer until now. So far, the only public deal is with Elon Musk’s TeraFab complex, which serves Tesla and other Musk-related companies, though the full details are still unknown. That dry spell may be ending soon.
The talks with SK Hynix focus on Intel’s Embedded Multi-Die Interconnect Bridge (EMIB) technology, which connects high-bandwidth memory and logic chips. Intel is pitching EMIB as a rival to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing’s CoWoS packaging. According to research firm TrendForce, EMIB eliminates the need for an expensive interposer, simplifying manufacturing and boosting yields. Additionally, EMIB offers a more flexible design and can enable thinner, more compact chip assemblies, though it may cause slightly higher latency than CoWoS in some cases.
A deal with SK Hynix would be a big win for Intel. SK Hynix is one of the top memory chip makers in the world and an important supplier for AI hardware. If SK Hynix backs Intel’s packaging technology, it would show that EMIB is ready to compete at the top of the semiconductor industry.
If the Apple and SK Hynix deals are confirmed, Intel’s recent gains could translate into meaningful foundry business.
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