But is this an issue of them only building their own chips?
(Speaking of which, what does Intel do with old fabs for the past 20 years after moving to a new node?)
(Speaking of which, what does Intel do with old fabs for the past 20 years after moving to a new node?)
Old Intel fabs are refurbished, by installing modern equipment, so they are converted from old CMOS fabrication processes to recent processes.
Before being converted, the fabs spend a few years making peripheral chips that complement the Intel CPUs, e.g. the so-called south-bridge, which may be packaged together with the CPU for laptops or it may be a separate IC package for desktops, and which does not need a fabrication process as dense as the CPUs.