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Comment by jabl | Hacker News Reader

Intel Foundry Services (IFS) is marketing themselves as the only fab capable of producing all three of x86, Arm, and RISC-V.

Back when Intel had a process advantage over everybody else I guess it made strategic sense for them to not let others use their process. Now when that process lead is gone, refusing to fab chips for non-x86 ISA's just means those customers will go elsewhere.

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> Intel Foundry Services (IFS) is marketing themselves as the only fab capable of producing all three of x86, Arm, and RISC-V.

Capable? From the fab point of view, all three of those are just rectangles.

I mean, same rectangles won't work for different foundries. It is saying we have these IP cores tested and working with the process.

This, and also the licensing question. Intel has said they will license x86 cores for use in 3rd party SoC's/chiplets, but maybe only if you use IFS.

That sounds a lot like a tying arrangement, which could be unlawful under US anti-trust laws.

> Intel Foundry Services (IFS) is marketing themselves as the only fab capable of producing all three of x86, Arm, and RISC-V.

TSMC is producing all of these. Not like the architecture matters from a foundry POV anyways.

TSMC is producing some x86 cpu's for Intel. I think what they're saying here is that they will license x86 cores for integrating into 3rd party SoC's/chiplets, but only if you use IFS.

As far as I'm aware, all current Intel x86 CPUs are Intel fab-only, although https://www.tomshardware.com/uk/news/intel-to-outsource-some... suggests that TSMC x86 CPUs might come out in 2023.

They're also producing all x86 CPUs for AMD.

Yes [1]? The argument is about whether Intel refuses to license their processor designs to 3rd parties to be fabbed in any random fab.

[1] Evidently the x86 cross licensing deals between AMD and Intel doesn't preclude AMD from using 3rd party fabs.

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