Intel to invest a further $1bn into chip foundry industry

New fund will support the ‘foundry ecosystem’ to help meet global chip demand, company says

Intel has launched a new $1bn fund to support both start-ups and established companies in the "foundry ecosystem".

Intel claims the new fund will "prioritise investments in capabilities that accelerate foundry customers' time to market - spanning intellectual property (IP), software tools, innovative chip architectures and advanced packaging technologies", and is a collaboration between Intel Capital and Intel Foundry Services.

"Foundry customers are rapidly embracing a modular design approach to differentiate their products and accelerate time to market," Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger said.

"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."

It follows last month's announcement that the chip maker has decided to invest $20bn into two new chip plants in Ohio - which could rise to eight chip fabs and an investment of as much as $100bn over the next decade.

Gelsinger has spoken out about his desire to see more chips made outside of Asia and the company recently set up IFS "to help meet the growing global demand for advanced semiconductor manufacturing".

Intel says the fund will encompass "equity investments in disruptive start-ups", "strategic investments to accelerate partner scale-up" and "ecosystem investments to develop disruptive capabilities supporting IFS customers".

As part of the newly launched fund, Intel is also partnering with those in the RISC-V chip ecosystem, including Andes Technology, Esperanto Technologies, SiFive and Ventana Micro Systems.