Statements in this presentation that refer to future plans or expectations are forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current expectations and involve many risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements. For more information on the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially, see the most recent earnings release and SEC filings at www.intc.com.
The truth is innovation doesn't just happen on its own. Every breakthrough, every bold idea, it begins with what if. It takes commitment. It takes collaboration. And it takes trust. At Intel Foundry, we know that progress is built together, listening, learning, working alongside you to turn ideas into reality. Because big ideas need the right foundation, a strong manufacturing partner, a resilient, secure supply chain, a robust ecosystem of partners, and technology that accelerates your ambition. Let's build what's next. Let us earn your trust every single day. You have big ideas. We're ready.
Please welcome Intel CEO Lip-bu Tan.
I can't see too well. The light is very, very bright. But anyway, welcome to Direct Connect. Thank you for joining us today and it is great to see so many good friends, partners and customers and thank you for all your support. We have a very busy agenda. It's not just speakers and many demos for you to engage outside as well as a technology showcase with more than 40 different of our partners and please stop by and I will be also stopping by to see some of them. This is a great opportunity to share our priorities and also our progress. More important today is to listen to our customer. I would love your feedback so that we can better serve you. You know, I've been the CEO for about five weeks now and then some of the people asking me since I joined Intel, Lip-bu, are you committed to the foundry? The answer is yes. I'm so excited today to share with you. I'm committed to make the Intel Foundry successful and I know there are areas we need to improve. I'm determined to strengthen our road map and our partnership and our execution going forward. As we drive this improvement, we see a lot of opportunity ahead of us. Semiconductors are foundational to our modern society and they power our company and they enrich our experience of daily lives and this will only increase in the world of AI and clearly you can see from the chart this is going to become a one trillion dollars industry in the coming year 2030 and a lot is driven by the AI and so this is a very exciting time. This is an amazing opportunity for all of us to pursue and Intel has a very important role to play. We are the only company that does advanced leading edge semiconductor R&D and manufacturing in the United States. Our R&D investments are driving new process technology and advanced packaging solutions. We'll continue to bolster our manufacturing capabilities and we're working to strengthen our position in each of these areas. Naga and Kevin, my co-workers, will go into details shortly but let me set the stage and clearly you can see the slide. R&D, process technology, advanced packaging and manufacturing, these are all the important roles that Intel wants to play and to serve you while investing in key technologies and this includes Intel's differentiated advanced packaging capabilities. Our EMIB and Foveros solutions are being used to drive better power efficiency, bandwidth and cost for our customers. And the combination of RibbonFET, gate-all-around with PowerVia, backside power, is a key differentiator for our next generation process nodes. As you can tell, the four areas of technology that we're doubling and tripling down on so that we can really show the differentiating technology. First and foremost is the Intel 18A, which is supporting the launch of our Panther Lake products. Our first Panther Lake SKU will be launched at the end of the year and we'll have more SKUs coming in the first half of 2026. We'll continue to advance our 14A which will enable us to serve a broader set of the market. We are working closely with key, I call it the node drivers, customers to help us define the features and KPIs that will make 14A the best-in-class node. We also continue advancing in manufacturing as you can see from the slide. We build a diverse and resilient global supply chain, as you can see, including a robust footprint across the western hemisphere and we have the ability to expand the activity at several of these sites based on customer needs. I believe that will be the key strength of Intel moving forward, particularly here in the United States. I'm very pleased that the Trump administration has made American technology and manufacturing leadership a key priority. We are committed to working with them to achieve the shared goal. But to do that, we know we need to up our game. We are up against some strong competitors and partners and we are focused to create an engineering-first culture of continuous improvement. We have many strengths to build on. Intel technology powers the majority of PC, world pieces and data center and this is a result of R&D, process technology, advanced packaging and manufacturing investment I just spoke about. But the past achievements do not guarantee future success. Our job now is to apply these strengths in a new way to meet the needs of the broader market. Every customer has their unique way of building products. We need to do a better job making it easier for all of you to use our technology. We will more rapidly embrace industry standard EDA tools and best design practices. And there are four pillars of design enablement that I'm most focused on. Intellectual property, we call it IP, design, the digital design flows, design for manufacturability, and design for yield. Let's talk about them each and beginning with IP. IP is key to accelerate development, ensuring the right performance and compatibility and enabling the first-time-pass culture through validated designs. One of the industry IP leaders is Synopsys. They are a strong partner to Intel and right now at this moment I'd like to welcome Sassine Ghazi to the stage.
Well, first of all, I'd like to welcome CEO of Synopsys, Sassine, to come here and thank you for being here. Great to be here with you. Yeah, there's a lot of great collaboration between Intel and Synopsys to get the IP, EDA, and ready for production design starts. And can you share with us the progress that Synopsys and Intel built together?
Synopsys and Intel. Yes, we as you know have had a long history with Intel, many, many years of collaboration with Intel Foundry in particular. Synopsys has the privilege with our IP portfolio to be the first on-ramp between our customers and Foundry. We start typically with Intel very, very early on at the 0.1 PDK with our DTCO, TCAD technology to do calibration of process device modeling. And of course with IP, that's what our joint customers really look at to see the entitlement around PPA for each process node. With 18A we started very early and we have pretty much our foundation IP and our entire IO, interconnect IP portfolio enabled on 18A.
Wonderful. Thank you so much for this collaboration together and then clearly on the 18A and down the road 14A on the horizon, we're partnering with you and the whole team to give customer success. So maybe you can elaborate a little bit how together we can make customers more successful in that design.
Yes. The key when you start working on the next process technology is the speed of iteration to improve both the technology itself and make it easy to use for our customer to ramp up on. Actually, my team handed me before I walked on stage a test chip that we were working on with you and this is on 18A on a 0.3 PDK about a year ago. So right now the work we're doing on 14A is no different. We're in that early stage, we call it at day zero. We work with you with TCAD and with foundation IP which is the essential standard cells in order to start our IP development. And a couple of observations actually that we're observing with Intel Foundry is not only from a process technology, you have packaging which is very differentiated. And the last part is foundry is all about services, how well can you enable the customer and have an ease of ramp to your technology. And I believe Intel has made dramatic progress in terms of the ability to ramp up on your technology.
Wonderful. And you have been working with us together to serve the customer and what are you hearing from the customers about Intel Foundry and where are the areas that we can do better?
Customers are, I want to say, desperate for optionality and for technology that they can bring in. There's huge silicon demand as you know and having an option like Intel Foundry and you mentioned it earlier in terms of a North America technology foundry, that's something that's very important for our customers. What they're saying initially, what they used to wonder is the difficulty to ramp up on an Intel technology versus what they're used to with other foundries. And I believe that the gap of design difficulty has absolutely shrunk. To give you just a perspective, we started designing our IP on Intel technology around 10 nanometer where the design effort used to be two and a half to 3x more to just design on Intel technology compared to 18A which is equivalent to the industry standard, I want to call it, which is a huge progress which is very important for our customer. You cannot only win with technology, you need to have the whole process of enablement ready in order for the customer to see it as viable.
Wonderful, Sassine. Thank you so much for taking the time and this partnership is very important moving forward and we count on you to continue the partnership and support with us.
You have our commitment. Thank you so much.
Another key area of focus is the digital design flow and enablement. This is critical to optimize the power, performance, and area and scaling to new applications and driving the leading edge nodes of the future. Cadence Design is a leader in this space. They are obviously a company that I know very well and they have been a very strong Intel partner and I'm looking forward to welcoming Anirudh to the stage.
How are you? How are you my man? You know, first of all, I want to say it's so great to see you and thank you for taking the time after the earning call. That's a very busy schedule to even come here and so delighted to have you here.
Absolutely Lip-bu, great to be here. Thank you.
And then we know there are several mega trends happening in our industry. One being the explosion of AI and I always hear you talking about the general AI to agentic AI and physical AI and that you really drive that initiative. And clearly, I still remember that you're driving a lot of AI initiatives to all the EDA tools across the board to make it more productive for the customer. And so with that, I think it would be good to kind of share about what are the mutual customers that we can address the demand of our customer.
Absolutely. Well, first of all, thank you for inviting me. Great to be here. Great to work with you again even more closely. And you know, as you all know, AI is a big mega trend. And there's a lot of talk of AI infrastructure like data center but also I believe that's a few hundred billion dollar addition to the silicon industry but also the physical AI would be another few hundred billion. So I think the one trillion number may be pessimistic by 2030 driven by AI. And I think for us and Intel, it's great to see the collaboration across the board, you know, in digital, in EDA, in IP, also in system tools, packaging. I know Intel has a lot of investment in packaging. And so we're working with all the AI companies, helping them drive their infrastructure whether it's the hyperscalers or the big leaders like Nvidia. But also we are also applying AI to our own tools like you mentioned, our products, because this is a big opportunity to transform how chip design and system design has been done and to automate a lot of the mundane work. And we see a lot of improvements, you know, PPA can improve almost 10 to 20% which sometimes is equivalent to like a node jump. So there's a big improvement and also productivity. So I think together working with Intel Foundry, there's a big opportunity to apply AI to the design process.
Wonderful. Yeah. And on a note, I'm new to this Intel Foundry. And what do you think the Intel Foundry and how we can, your perception and listen to customer, what are the changes and improvement?
First of all, I'm so delighted that Lip-bu is there at Intel because it's a national asset and I think Lip-bu is going to, you know, completely transform. And one of the main things, you know, I of course had the privilege of working with Lip-bu for so long is we always talk about team, technology, and customers. And you know, Intel and especially Intel Foundry as you all know is like a service business. So customer comes first and I know Lip-bu has very good instincts to understand what the customer wants. I know you already met a lot of the top customers already and I think this is something that Intel, you know, through its rich history now needs to do more, right, listen to customers. I think that's one big change. Now in terms of technology, I mean it's good to see this collaboration on, you know, of course packaging is going to be a big thing, 3DIC, and I think Intel has very good advanced packaging capabilities and we are also collaborating more on that. And also Intel is the first one to go to backside metal and we see good improvements with backside metal. So in terms of technology, you know, apart from the core transistors, I think packaging and backside metal can be a good thing. And I know you always focus on best product first, right, product wins. And then in terms of team, I know you're already making changes but also the working with the ecosystem so as one team with Cadence and Intel. So it's not, I think Intel is a great company but can't do it by themselves, need the partnership of the ecosystem which I think is even more important for the foundry. So I'm glad you're doing that too.
Thank you. And then in terms of what excites you most about working with the Intel Foundry and Intel as a whole company?
No, I'm really looking forward to it. I mean, like I said, I think this whole industry is going to be one trillion plus. You know, the electronics market is three trillion plus. I saw all these reports that by 2035 even the foundry market could be like, you know, 500 billion plus. So it's a huge opportunity. So I look forward to working with you and Intel and really making a difference for our customers.
So wonderful and first of all, congratulations on the great earnings and continue the great work and looking forward for your partnership going forward.
Thank you. Thank you Lip-bu. Take care.
You know, the third building block of a successful foundry is design for manufacturability. DFM is driving higher yield and reliability and cost effectiveness throughout the fab. And you know, Siemens EDA is a leader in this space and a great partner to Intel Foundry. And Siemens has this digital industrial software that really drives the design engineering and manufacturing and the lifecycle for the industry and embrace-based industry. And I'm just delighted to welcome CEO of Siemens EDA, Mike.
Nice to see you. Nice to see you. Thank you so much for coming. Yeah. And I was a little jealous that you gave Anirudh a hug before me. So I thought I was the special one. But we worked together for how many years together?
Very many years. Yes. Through some of the rough times as I remember.
That's right. Beginning. Yes. Very much so. Yeah. Thank you. So taking your busy time to come over here, I appreciate it. And Siemens is a very important partner for us and then clearly, you know, from the Siemens, I always admire Roland and all my good friends and then you guys building that whole system approach to the whole industry. And one thing that I'm really excited is how together we can empower the customer. And clearly on the manufacturing side, Calibre is the industry standard that we all know. And then can you share with us our collaboration progress we make together?
Sure. So, Lip-bu and the audience, as you know, Intel Foundry and Siemens EDA have been working together on certification of our technologies in physical verification and simulation for years. You know, we're currently certified on Intel Foundry 18A. We're doing performance tuning on Intel Foundry 18AP and we started the process on Intel Foundry 14AE. So, lots of work going on in that space. But what also is interesting is that we've had an ongoing partnership for almost 15 years now with the advanced packaging team. Yes. So there's a lot of innovation going on with technology and methodology associated or where does packaging go into the future. And then lastly, we're proud to be one of the founding partners as part of the Intel Foundry Accelerator Chiplet Alliance. Yes, I knew I'd get that right. Yes, that's a mouthful. But you know what I find interesting about this thing is as you take a look at expectations of fabless customers, right, you know, they expect great process technology but on top of that what they're expecting is predictability of cost, yield, and schedule through the manufacturing process, right? Power, performance, area, well that's on the design teams themselves but the fabs really got to give that predictability and that's where Siemens EDA comes in with our industry-leading Calibre platform because it's a trusted signoff between the fab companies and the foundries boundary in order to make sure that the translation of the manufacturing process requirements goes into design. And then on top of it, when you take a look at the connectivity that Calibre provides with all the fab companies and the silicon IP providers, it really ties together an ecosystem so that everyone can stay in their natural design environments using methodologies but still come into the foundry with predictability. So for me when I take a look at where Intel Foundry and Siemens EDA are, we're really putting together, you know, a trusted customer-centric solution. It's really good stuff.
Wonderful. You know, just dip a little bit, dive a little bit closer deeper to that on your perspective. You know, we clearly you mentioned about the advanced packaging, our EMIB and all the technology we have. How do we work together to really helping our customer?
Yeah. So to me, EMIB is a fascinating technology platform with the promise that it offers with lower latency, lower power, and lower cost. I mean, it's got a lot of the lowers associated with it and it's especially well suited for where the world is heading in AI. And when you really contemplate what's going on with our customers and our customers' customers, they're undergoing a digital transformation where software now is the primary differentiation, right? So the idea of something that is software-defined and silicon-enabled is really taking hold within our industries. And with that, you know, the days of a hardware team handing off a silicon platform to software groups and software is making compromises to make the system work are over. You know, the hardware platform has to be customized to the software workload it is driving. And to me, you know, that's where advanced packaging and 3DIC came in because now they allow a discrete combination of the hardware assets to map the workload that they're driving. And so that's where Intel Foundry comes in with a great technology platform, a world-class advanced packaging team. You know, as I said earlier, we've been working with them for more than 15 years as far as partnership doing the delivery of technology and methodologies. And so as I take a look at an enablement point for this digital transformation, you know, Intel Foundry has a wonderful opportunity for how they can change the world.
That's so thank you. Yeah, you know, Siemens I always admire is a system company and then enable the design, you know, from the EDA to manufacturing and then for the industrial applications. And then Intel will try to be the system foundry and so there's a lot of area that we can collaborate and learn from each other especially in the system know-how that you guys have in terms of industrial automation, power management. And so tell me a little bit how can we change the world together and then driving this whole system approach to the design.
Yeah. So, you know, it's an interesting question because what I find exciting about our opportunity together is, you know, the world is becoming more and more dependent on silicon-enabled devices and systems. And as you take a look at the access to silicon becoming a national priority for many nations across the world, you know, they're worried about the access to silicon because it could be a society disruption or a disruption to the very way of life. And when we start imagining the almost limitless possibilities with AI and how it can impact our lives together going into the future. You know, it does create a challenge with the number of new designs that have to get started in order to address all of this. And then we end up with what's going on with access to silicon. Universities aren't graduating enough engineers and the engineers that we have, well, they're retiring. So we're faced with a challenge and an opportunity and dilemma all at the same time is how do we take earlier in career engineers and allow them to address the multitude of new designs that they have to deliver and have silicon for it. And so when you contemplate what's going on in the world, you know, the world is really dependent upon a resilient, robust, distributed, advanced node silicon supply chain. You know, on top of that the world really needs a set of AI-infused technologies that connect together the broader EDA ecosystem in order to allow all design content to be created. So this is where we come in together, right. So the world in my opinion needs Intel Foundry to be successful with the delivery of advanced node technology and be able to manufacture it. The world needs Siemens EDA and as a matter of fact all of EDA to deliver these AI-infused technologies to be workforce multipliers. So when you bring it all together it's really one of those pivotal events when you take a look at the world depends on success from Intel Foundry and from Siemens EDA together. So I mean I think it's a wonderful, wonderful opportunity for all of us.
Fantastic. I'm looking forward to a more deeper collaboration together.
I am too. Thank you so much.
A final area that I want to highlight is the importance of design for yield. Data and machine learning continue to unlock new opportunities to improve yield and accelerate time to market. PDF Solutions is a clear leader in this space and I really want to welcome the CEO of PDF, John Kibarian, to the stage.
Well, thank you really so much for joining here. Thank you. And besides we do hiking, we also have CMU technology advisory board together. Yes. And your wife actually is on the board with me at the CMU. So we have a lot of connection there. Absolutely. And then clearly, you know, Intel and PDF Solutions working together to ensure the design for yield and manufacturability to build the process from the beginning and that's very critical. And so can you elaborate how we work together and then to help each other here?
Sure. And first of all, thank you very much for having us here and for the partnership that we've had with Intel and also in the partnership you and I have had over the years. You know, Intel has been a leader, the leading IDM for decades. And when it decided to make advanced process nodes available to its outside customers, its system foundry customers, it recognized that in order to be able to yield ramp fast, you need to really characterize the way processes and designs come together differently for the foundry market. So about four years ago, it began using PDF Systems in collaboration with its internal systems to build PDKs, to build the data sets that allow the engineers in R&D to interact more closely with the production, the design teams and the eventual production teams to achieve best performance and variability. Below seven nanometer to maximize performance, profitability and yields, you really got to co-optimize. And that co-optimization can't begin after the fact. The R&D teams need to be working with the product portfolios in mind from the beginning. And so to do that, they've really got to start working much more early with the design information in manufacturing. I always felt, you know, you look at Siemens, it's bringing design manufacturing data into design. We have to bring design information into manufacturing so manufacturers know how to take into account the products that they may not see yet, particularly as Intel moves to having more and more external customers. So we initiated a way of working with design information brought into the manufacturing flow, enable e-beam inspection, enable new ways of looking at characterization data so the R&D teams can respond to the future problems and address them early on so the technology is more ready not just for Intel's internal products but for the world's products.
