Intel has announced that it’s buying Tower Semiconductor, an Israeli chipmaking company that focuses on specialty products like radio frequency (RF) chips, CMOS image sensors, and power management parts, for $5.4 billion.
The deal is specifically intended to bolster the company’s fledgling Intel Foundry Service division, which Intel created last year to apply its chipmaking techniques and manufacturing facilities to build chips for other third-party companies. Once the deal closes, the goal is that Tower and IFS will be integrated together as a “fully integrated foundry business.”
Intel has made no bones about its plans to rapidly ramp up production capabilities, with recent news of a $20 billion investment to expand its existing…
