As part of its IDM 2.0 (Integrated Device Manufacturer) plan, Intel has announced it has setup a $1 Billion fund to support early-stage startups and established companies building disruptive technologies for the foundry ecosystem. A collaboration between Intel Capital and Intel Foundry Services (IFS), the move aims to capitalize on what Intel sees as the future of the industry: with a focus on an Open Chiplet platform and Open Interconnect Standard, Intel is looking to enable partners to deploy packaging technologies that bring together multiple ISAs (Instruction Set Architectures) within the same chip. The idea is simple: customers will be looking to mix and match several IPs on their semiconductor designs, taking advantage of different strengths (particularly in the power/performance /area equation) from each.

Foundry customers are rapidly embracing a modular design approach to differentiate their products and accelerate time to market. Intel Foundry Services is well-positioned to lead this major industry inflection. With our new investment fund and open chiplet platform, we can help drive the ecosystem to develop disruptive technologies across the full spectrum of chip architectures.

-Pat Gelsinger, Intel CEO