Intel needs TSMC’s help to make Coffee Lake CPUs as its 14nm chip supply crumbles

Intel is reportedly looking to outsource some of its 14nm CPUs and chipsets to rival semiconductor fab TSMC. The company’s 14nm supply was already looking a little less than rosy, but off the back of even more supply shortfall news, it looks like Intel has been given little choice but to buckle up and buy some capacity at a rival foundry. Intel’s 14nm process has been around since the 6th Gen Skylake processors, which you’d expect would lead to a mature process with high yields. However, the delays in the 10nm process besetting Intel - the new node is currently delayed until ‘holiday 2019’ - has caused further repercussions for the company. Most especially it has affected its prolific 14nm process, used in almost every single product within its product stack. TSMC is the foundry currently responsible for Nvidia’s graphics card lineup, including the recently announced RTX 2080, and, since GlobalFoundries has announced it is now backing down from 7nm die shrinks, the Taiwanese semiconductor behemoth will soon manage all of AMD’s graphics and CPU products, too. Soon, it looks like TSMC might be adding Intel’s core processors to its star-studded client list.

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