Fortinet will use Intel's foundry to produce its next-generation SP6 security processor on the Intel 4 manufacturing process
David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Intel $INTC and Fortinet $FTNT announced a collaboration on Tuesday to develop Fortinet's next-generation Security Processor 6, or SP6, marking the first publicly named cybersecurity chip customer for Intel's foundry business. The SP6 chip will be manufactured on Intel's Intel 4 process, according to CNBC.
The partnership combines Fortinet's security processor design with Intel's manufacturing, packaging, and design capabilities. The companies said the work is also intended to improve the resilience and diversity of Fortinet's global supply chain.
"As organizations face a rapidly evolving threat landscape, security infrastructure must deliver both performance and innovation at scale," Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan said in a statement. "This collaboration demonstrates how Intel's semiconductor leadership and advanced design, packaging, and manufacturing capabilities can help cybersecurity leaders like Fortinet accelerate the development of critical security technologies while building a more resilient and diversified global supply chain."
Fortinet Founder, Chairman, and CEO Ken Xie said in a statement that the expanded relationship with Intel would leverage its semiconductor technology and manufacturing expertise to help accelerate Fortinet's application-specific integrated circuit, or ASIC, strategy.
Intel 4 is a more mature process node, originally developed for networking ASICs and similar simpler chips, putting it behind Intel's cutting-edge 14A and 18A processes. The companies said they would explore additional opportunities to deepen collaboration across semiconductor technology and manufacturing, with the goal of advancing Fortinet's long-term ASIC roadmap.
Intel has been working to expand its roster of external foundry customers. In a May interview with CNBC's Jim Cramer, Tan acknowledged that "multiple customers" were engaged with Intel's foundry while declining to name any of them, citing it as his personal policy. An April regulatory filing showed Intel had yet to land a "significant" customer for its most advanced manufacturing processes.
Intel's foundry has previously shipped high-volume logic products manufactured using ASML $ASML's High NA EUV lithography technology, with select layers of its Panther Lake processors built on the Intel 18A process node now being patterned with that equipment. Intel's second-quarter earnings are due out Thursday.
Fortinet shares have surged more than 100% so far this year and executives reaffirmed at the company's May earnings call that ASIC development remains a priority.
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