Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan charts foundry roadmap

Investing.com -- Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) CEO, Lip-Bu Tan reaffirmed the company’s commitment to becoming a leading global foundry player, laying out a focused roadmap at the Direct Connect Conference that prioritized customer trust, technology readiness, and delivery discipline. “I’m committed,” Tan said, as he acknowledged questions about his role, just five weeks into the job. “I’m so excited today to share with you… I’m committed to making Intel a leader in semiconductors.”

Tan outlined four foundational goals for Intel Foundry Services (IFS): delivering on power, performance, and area targets with cost competitiveness; ensuring that Intel’s process technology is accessible for a broad set of customers; building deep engagement in advanced packaging; and reestablishing Intel as a dependable, ecosystem-friendly foundry partner. “Our job now is to apply these strengths in new ways to meet the needs of the product market,” Tan told a crowd of customers and partners.

A key message of the keynote was that earning and keeping customer trust requires more than breakthrough process technology. It means delivering predictable results, focusing on quality and reliability, and ensuring a seamless transition to silicon. “We will rapidly embrace industry standards and best design practices,” Tan said, emphasizing Intel’s shift toward openness and standardization, a change many customers have long requested.

Tan also spotlighted ecosystem collaboration, pointing to Intel’s close partnership with Synopsys (NASDAQ:SNPS). Together, the two companies are enabling IP and EDA support early in the process development cycle to ensure first-time-right silicon. “There’s a lot of great collaboration between Intel and Synopsys to get the IP PPA ready for production design,” Tan noted during a joint segment with Synopsys CEO Sassine Ghazi.

Intel aims to make it easier for customers to ramp quickly on its nodes, with early design enablement on upcoming technologies like Intel 18A and beyond. The company stressed that while past innovation gave Intel global leadership, delivering consistent execution and fostering ecosystem confidence would determine future success.

Tan also acknowledged the industry’s evolving needs around packaging, supply chain resilience, and manufacturing footprint. He committed to maintaining a broad and scalable presence across the western hemisphere and praised U.S. policy efforts in support of semiconductor leadership. “The current administration has made American technology and manufacturing leadership a priority,” Tan said, adding that Intel will continue working with policymakers to meet shared objectives.

Tan reiterated Intel’s engineering-first culture and the importance of relentless improvement. “Past achievements do not guarantee future success,” he said, calling the current moment “an exciting time” and urging customers to offer feedback to help guide Intel’s transformation into a world-class foundry.

This article first appeared in Investing.com