Daily Update - June 19th, 2026
Trump's chip deal, Intel's new foundry chief, Marvell's photonic ICs, Samsung's CFET, and Architect Labs' custom silicon.
Intel Foundry had a very good Thursday.
Apple is having chips made at Intel in the United States. Trump announced it June 18, Intel shares hit a record high, and the SOXX jumped 6.6%.
For a foundry that has spent years trying to attract marquee customers, this is the one that matters. Apple made TSMC what TSMC is. Worth remembering that.
Then Intel doubled down: Seok-Hee Lee, a veteran of SK Hynix who also logged time at Intel before, joins as foundry EVP reporting to Lip-Bu Tan. Advanced packaging and back-end manufacturing are his mandate. LBT is pulling old Team Blue talent back home.
Also today: Tower and Marvell crossed five million coherent photonic ICs shipped. Samsung claimed best paper at VLSI 2026 for a CFET transistor that beats TSMC and imec on gate pitch. Architect Labs raised $24M to make custom chip design as accessible as TSMC made chip manufacturing. And in Worth a Watch, Lip-Bu Tan on why he took the Intel job at 66 and why agentic AI is turning CPUs into demand drivers again.
Let’s get into it. —Austin & Vik
Be sure to check out the Semi Doped podcast on YouTube or your favorite podcast player!
Trump Touts Apple-Intel Chip Manufacturing Deal
President Trump announced a collaboration under which Apple will have chips manufactured by Intel in the United States, sending Intel shares to a record high. The announcement, made June 18, also lifted Super Micro and pushed the SOXX semiconductor ETF up 6.6% as the sector rebounded following the Federal Reserve meeting. Apple’s commitment marks the most prominent customer endorsement to date for Intel’s struggling foundry business, which has been seeking external chip clients to fill capacity at its US fabs. Financial terms, target process nodes, and production timing were not disclosed. (Bloomberg Tech)
Vik: Apple made TSMC as much as TSMC made Apple — never forget their deep relationship. Intel getting involved with Apple now is a historic win for Intel Foundry Services. The Intel-Apple history runs so deep too. Intel famously decided against making chips for the iPhone. Semi industry has such great stories, which we try to cover on weekend editions of Semi Doped. Stay subscribed.
Intel names Seok-Hee Lee foundry EVP
Intel appointed Seok-Hee Lee as executive vice president of Intel Foundry, reporting directly to CEO Lip-Bu Tan, the company said Thursday. Lee will oversee advanced packaging, system integration, and back-end technology development and manufacturing. Intel framed the hire as a move to strengthen system-level innovation across its foundry operations. Reuters described Lee as an industry veteran brought in to lead Intel’s foundry packaging push. (Intel Newsroom, Reuters)
Vik: Intel is serious about advanced packaging. Seok-Hee Lee is a semiconductor heavyweight from SK Hynix. Great hire.
Austin: Apparently Lee also worked at Intel! Amazing. LBT can go around and also old “Team Blue” to come back and help save it.
Tower, Marvell pass five million coherent photonic ICs
Tower Semiconductor (NASDAQ/TASE: TSEM) and Marvell Technology have shipped more than five million coherent photonic integrated circuits built on Tower’s silicon photonics platform, the Israeli foundry said Thursday from Migdal Haemek. The chips are used in coherent optical modules for data center interconnects, where they support higher bandwidth and lower power per bit than legacy approaches. Tower manufactures the photonic ICs at its fabs and supplies them to Marvell, which integrates them into its coherent digital signal processor-based optical products. Neither company disclosed the value of the shipments or named end customers. (Tower Semiconductor)
Vik: This announcement is only one thing: a flex to show who is building more SiPho chips right now. Googled “GF shipments SiPho” and came up with 3 substacks (one was mine). Flex is working.
Samsung details CFET transistor beyond GAA
Samsung Electronics unveiled what it describes as the world’s smallest 3D stacked field-effect transistor, a structure the broader industry calls a complementary field-effect transistor (CFET). The design vertically stacks NMOS and PMOS transistors, a departure from the side-by-side layout used in current gate-all-around (GAA) nodes, and is positioned as a successor architecture once GAA scaling runs out. Samsung disclosed the development results through The Elec, framing it as a step beyond the GAA transistors it began producing at its 3nm node. (The Elec)
Vik: Oh, best paper award at 2026 VLSI Symposium! Interesting. Not sure I understand how its smaller than TSMC CFET for example. I need to find their symposium paper.
Austin: Super cool. Also, remember these aren’t angstrom-sized (“beyond 3nm node”):
“Samsung said on June 17 that it introduced a 42-nanometer gate-pitch 3D stacked FET at the 2026 VLSI Symposium, a leading international semiconductor conference held recently. The achievement narrows the gate pitch by 6 nanometers compared with the 48-nanometer results previously reported by TSMC and imec.”
Still, mind blowingly small and awesome.
Architect Labs raises $24M for custom chips
Architect Labs, a semiconductor startup, raised $24 million in funding to compete with Broadcom and Marvell in the custom chip business, according to Reuters. The company is targeting the application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) market, where Broadcom and Marvell currently design custom silicon for hyperscale cloud providers and other large customers. (Reuters)
Vik: Hock Tan’s main stake in the ground was “no one knows how to design chips like we do.” But Architect Labs is looking to change that. From the article:
“The goal, Subedi said, is to make chip design as accessible as Taiwan’s TSMC has made chip manufacturing.”
In other words, leave the complexity to someone else. Love it, chip design needs to get easier because human expertise is a bottleneck.
Austin: LLMs mean more software gets written. AI for chip design means more hardware gets built. Love it.
Worth a Watch
Re-engineering the Semiconductor Supply Chain with Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan — No Priors (Sarah Guo & Elad Gil). Lip-Bu Tan on why he took the Intel job at 66, the government equity stake, Terafab with Elon Musk, and why agentic AI is turning CPUs into demand drivers again. One of the more candid CEO conversations you’ll find on Intel’s turnaround.
Fundraising
Architect Labs Raises $24M Seed to Democratize Custom Chip Design (businesswire.com)
Sector Watch
Nvidia Vera CPU strains LPDDR supply as AI servers use phone memory. (DigiTimes)
AMD and Rackspace partner on 30MW AI infrastructure rollout. (eenewseurope.com)
AMD acquires MEXT for AI memory optimization. (The Register)
RL Systems analyzes trainer and generator throughput gaps. (semianalysis.com)
Intel 18A-P process milestones and future innovation updates. (Intel IR)
Samsung Foundry in expansion talks with AMD and Google. (TrendForce)
Huawei rebuilds chip business with logic-stacking technology. (TechMeme)
TSMC and Amkor Technology announce long-term partnership for advanced packaging. (TrendForce)
TSMC explores CoWoS glass substrate technology. (TrendForce)
Trump Administration weighs government equity stakes in AI companies. (TechMeme)
By the Numbers
Closing moves, June 17:
Up: WOLF +8.2%, AEHR +7.4%, NBIS +6.0%, ARM +5.7%, WDC +4.6%, AVGO +4.3%
Down: SMCI -4.9%, HPQ -4.6%, ON -4.5%, CRM -4.1%, MSFT -3.8%, AMZN -3.5%
Press Releases
Synopsys announces the availability of the first wave of Multiphysics Fusion Solutions. (Synopsys IR, June 16)
Dell Technologies declares a quarterly cash dividend. (Dell Technologies IR, June 16)
Applied Materials unveils SENZ™, a fully integrated visual system for next-gen smart glasses. (Applied Materials IR, June 17)
Intel announces a leadership appointment at Intel Foundry to accelerate development and manufacturing. (Intel IR, June 18)