Another report from DigiTimes suggests that Lo would be responsible for luring away customers from TSMC Arizona to Intel. However, this rumor looks very odd considering the extremely limited leading-edge manufacturing capacities that Intel has and the difficulties associated with porting a leading-edge design from one fabrication process to another. Yet another rumor cited by DigiTimes is that Lo could try to persuade TSMC customers to use Intel's advanced packaging technologies instead of TSMC's own or alternatives offered by ASE, Amkor, or SPIL. While this could have merit, moving from chief of TSMC strategy to an ambassador for Intel's back-end packaging offerings is a strange career decision.
The Liberty Times report claims that before leaving, Lo used his senior position in corporate strategy to request internal technical files on N2, A16, A14, and post-A14 process technologies from staff. Given Lo's high-ranking position at TSMC, the request did not trigger internal alarms. The report remains unconfirmed, and neither Intel nor TSMC commented on the matter earlier this week.
As the information has not been confirmed, at this point, we do not know whether Intel has hired Wei-Jen Lo, and we certainly have no idea what information (if anything at all) Lo gathered from TSMC in his final days at the company.
Given how complex modern process technologies are and the length of their development cycles, it is highly unlikely that any information about TSMC's N2, A16, and A14 will meaningfully benefit Intel. The company's 18A fabrication process has entered limited volume production, and at this stage, Intel cannot fundamentally change it. The company also released an early process design kit (PDK) for its next-generation 14A technology earlier this year, so the most fundamental aspects of the node have been frozen and cannot be changed. Last but not least, both 18A and 14A differ in many ways from TSMC's N2/A16 and A14 that the foundry's know-how is largely irrelevant to Intel's process engineers, though it could still be useful for competitive-analysis teams.
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Key considerations
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Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/semiconductors/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/semiconductors/intel-ceo-rejects-reports-the-company-is-obtaining-tsmc-secrets-from-former-executive-taiwans-investigation-into-intels-controversial-recent-hire-continues#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com
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