Chip giant (NASDAQ: INTC) is investing billions of dollars in building its own foundry business. The real payoff won't come until 2025 at the earliest when its Intel 18A process node, expected by Intel to be the best in the industry, enters full-scale production. In addition to the Intel 18A process, the company's foundry arm advertises the cost-effective Intel 16 process for chips that don't need cutting-edge manufacturing tech, as well as the upcoming Intel 3 process.

Intel Foundry doesn't appear to offer the Intel 4 process as an option. Intel 4 will be used to manufacture the company's own Meteor Lake laptop chips, which are set to launch in December, but nothing else on Intel's PC or server roadmaps make use of the process.

It turns out that at least one other product is using Intel 4. Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson announced in November that its latest family of radio-access network chips, which are used by communications-service providers, are manufactured using the Intel 4 process. It's unclear whether this was a true design win for Intel Foundry, given that Intel 4 doesn't seem to be on the menu, or if Intel was involved in the design process. Either way, it's a win for Intel's manufacturing ambitions.

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Source Fool.com