Intel Foundry wins Fortinet firewall ASIC deal, first named external customer for Intel 4 node

Published Jul 22, 04:17 PM UTC

Intel announced on July 21 that it will design, package, and fabricate Fortinet's sixth-generation Security Processor (SP6) on its Intel 4 node, making Fortinet the first named external foundry customer for that process node. The deal marks a strategic win for Intel Foundry under CEO Lip-Bu Tan, though Intel 4 was not originally marketed for foundry services. The SP6 is a chiplet-based design, a first for Fortinet's SP line, and moves the cybersecurity firm's flagship processor away from TSMC-linked supply chains in Taiwan and Japan toward Intel's Fab 34 in Ireland. Intel 4 entered high-volume manufacturing in September 2023, initially producing Meteor Lake compute tiles. Fortinet, which holds 55% of the firewall market with about six million FortiGates deployed, previously re-engineered products during chip shortages to diversify supply. Intel Foundry reported $307 million in external revenue for 2025 against a $10.3 billion operating loss.