Intel’s New Car Division Aims to Modernize Driving

Intel’s Ponte Vecchio processor uses advanced packaging techniques the chipmaker plans to offer automakers, too.

Intel on Thursday announced a new division to design and sell chips that will help carmakers modernize vehicles and the processors that power them.

The chipmaker is trying to cash in on a fast growing market for the semiconductors it builds. For automakers, processors in 2019 represented 4% of a car’s cost, but it’s going to soar to 20% by 2030, Intel predicts.

That’s because cars are becoming computers on wheels, with developments like autonomous vehicle technology, driver assistance features like automatic emergency braking, chips that monitor everything from tire pressure to battery temperature, and ever fancier dashboard displays and entertainment systems. Intel already has a presence in the market through its MobileEye subsidiary, which develops advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS).

Don’t expect to see an “Intel inside” sticker on your next car’s dashboard, but if Intel succeeds, that’ll be what’s actually going on behind the dashboard and under the hood. As chips spread into every product, the world is “at the beginning of what we believe will be a Golden Age of Semiconductors,” Intel Chief Executive Pat Gelsinger said.

Intel unveiled the automotive unit, a new challenge to rivals Nvidia and Qualcomm, at its annual investor day event. It also announced new efforts to improve PC graphics chips and continued progress in modernizing its troubled processor manufacturing operations and

Intel’s new automotive unit is part of the Intel Foundry Services (IFS) division, one of the major efforts Gelsinger adopted to try to reverse Intel’s slide off the leading edge of chipmaking. Gelsinger, who returned to Intel a year ago, hopes to recover from more than a half decade of problems modernizing its chip manufacturing by accelerating progress in a “super Moore’s Law” phase. And he’s boosted by explosive demand for chips he’s calling a new golden age for the industry.

IFS means Intel will build chips for other companies, not just its own designs, a dramatic shift in culture, technology, operations, and business relationships. Intel’s earlier foundry efforts faltered, but Gelsigner promises things will be different this time. One data point: Intel has agreed to acquire Tower Semiconductor for $5.4 billion, a deal that would significantly expand the types of chips IFS can make for customers.

Making others’ chips isn’t as profitable as Intel’s existing business, but it plays a role in Intel’s grander plans. Staying competitive with the top two foundries, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. (TSMC) and Samsung, requires manufacturing chips in massive volume to pay off extraordinarily expensive chipmaking equipment investments. IFS is intended to deliver some of that volume.

If Gelsinger’s IFS vision succeeds, Intel could build chips even for rivals like graphics and AI chip designer Nvidia, PC and server chip designer AMD, and smartphone chip designer Qualcomm. Qualcomm endorsed IFS, but it hasn’t made a public commitment on building a specific product, and it’ll be until years from now if it does.

Source: www.cnet.com