Drawing the battle-lines
The global semiconductor industry has formed itself into three distinct blocs: Intel's ecosystem, the IBM alliance and everyone else, and the boundaries between the groups are becoming ever more defined.
Intel has announced it's investing in ASMI, a company that specialises in making some of the breath-takingly expensive equipment that's used to manufacture chips. While Intel's investment activities have been very active for some time now, this could also be viewed as a defensive move in response to the anticipated increased strength of the alliance.
"Equipment and materials innovation is critical to enabling new capabilities in semiconductor device manufacturing," said Arvind Sodhani, Intel EVP and president of Intel Capital. "Our investment in ASMI is part of Intel Capital's strategy to foster innovation that aligns with Intel's manufacturing technology roadmap."
In recent conversations with GLOBALFOUNDRIES - the former manufacturing arm of AMD and member of the IBM alliance - it has become clear that it's positioning itself in direct opposition to the current foundry market leader - TSMC.
Perhaps coincidentally, the world's biggest semiconductor Intel recently announced an unprecedented collaboration with TSMC to outsource the manufacture of its Atom processors and try to introduce them into the handheld smart device ecosystem.
This support of a principle counterweight to the IBM alliance, on top of the acquisition of four percent of a manufacturing equipment maker, could be viewed as attempts by Intel to create a semiconductor alliance of its own.
