Intel has landed its first named external customer for its contract chip-making business under CEO Lip-Bu Tan. Cybersecurity firm Fortinet will use Intel Foundry to manufacture the upcoming SP6 security processor on the Intel 4 process, the companies confirmed this week. The deal marks a small but tangible step forward for Intel’s struggling foundry ambitions—it provides a credible commercial reference, but it also leaves unanswered the bigger question of whether the company can attract high-volume customers to its cutting-edge 18A and future 14A nodes.

What the deal actually delivers

Fortinet’s SP6 will succeed the current SP5 processor, which is already built into several FortiGate appliance families. Intel will fabricate the chip using its Intel 4 technology, an extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) lithography process that entered high-volume manufacturing earlier this decade. The process is mature, well-characterized, and proven—it’s no longer Intel’s most advanced node. Intel 18A is already in production, and the company is developing 14A as its next major platform.

Neither company disclosed wafer volumes, financial terms, a production schedule, or the specific performance targets for SP6. That lack of detail limits the deal’s immediate financial significance. But a named, production-bound security ASIC from a company like Fortinet is still a valuable signal for Intel Foundry after years of showing only vague design engagements and anonymous potential customers.

Fortinet hasn’t said when SP6 will appear in shipping appliances, though the move from a 7nm-class SP5 to Intel 4 likely brings meaningful density and performance-per-watt improvements. SP6 will be a custom system-on-chip integrating general-purpose processing, networking acceleration, cryptographic engines, and content-inspection blocks—the kinds of workloads that stress a process node’s logic density, power characteristics, and yield.

What it means for you

For home users: This announcement won’t change your PC or home network today. SP6 is a chip destined for Fortinet’s security appliances—firewalls, threat prevention boxes, and SD-WAN devices used by businesses. You’re unlikely to ever touch one unless you manage a corporate firewall. But if you work remotely or your company uses FortiGate hardware, improved performance per watt could eventually mean smaller, quieter, more capable boxes that enforce security policies without slowing down your Zoom calls or VPN connections.

For enterprise IT and security teams: If your organization runs Fortinet hardware, keep SP6 on your radar. A new security processor typically translates into higher real-world throughput when features like intrusion prevention, SSL inspection, and application control are all switched on—which is where many appliances see performance drop drastically. Fortinet hasn’t published specs, but SP6 should help consolidate branch-office functions (routing, SD-WAN, zero-trust access, threat prevention) into a single device with fewer compromises. It may also reduce the energy and cooling demands of data-center or campus firewalls.

Another angle: supply-chain diversification. Intel manufactures in the U.S. and Europe, and while the exact fab location for SP6 hasn’t been disclosed, the ability to source a security processor outside TSMC-dominant supply chains could appeal to government agencies and regulated industries. Don’t make procurement decisions on this yet, but it’s a factor to watch.

For IT managers evaluating the foundry landscape: This deal isn’t a direct threat to TSMC, but it does show Intel can win real chip-design wins against the incumbent. If you’re involved in custom silicon strategy—whether for networking, storage, or edge computing—Intel Foundry is now a named option with at least one shipping product on the horizon. That’s a stronger position than it had last week.

How we got here

Intel’s push to become a contract chip manufacturer started in earnest in 2021 under former CEO Pat Gelsinger. He created Intel Foundry Services, committed tens of billions of dollars to new fabs, and set out to prove that Intel’s manufacturing could serve not just its own CPUs but also external chip designers. The plan was always audacious: Intel had to shed decades of integrated-device-manufacturer culture and become a neutral supplier that respected customer IP, supported industry-standard design tools, and delivered reliable multi-year roadmaps.

The “five nodes in four years” plan was the hardware side of that bet—a rapid sequential rollout of Intel 7, Intel 4, Intel 3, Intel 20A, and Intel 18A. Intel 4 arrived on schedule and brought EUV lithography into Intel’s fabs, roughly doubling logic density over Intel 7. But even as the process ramp progressed, the foundry business struggled to attract big-name customers with publicly committed products. Much of Intel Foundry’s reported revenue continued to come from internal transactions with Intel’s own product groups.

Lip-Bu Tan took over as CEO in March 2025 with deep ties to the semiconductor design ecosystem. His challenge: turn technical milestones into paying customers. Fortinet is the first external chip designer to raise its hand during his tenure. It’s not a smartphone processor or an AI accelerator—volumes are modest compared to a consumer hit—but it’s a real product from a security vendor that sells worldwide and must support long appliance lifecycles. That matters because a foundry customer that deploys a chip into field hardware for five years or more creates steady demand and forces Intel to master production consistency.

Fortinet has built custom security silicon for over two decades. The SP5 processor, introduced in 2023 on a 7nm-class process, delivered better performance per watt and lower system cost than its predecessor, integrating CPU cores with network and content-processing accelerators. SP6 will likely follow the same philosophy but on a denser Intel 4 foundation. The move isn’t just about shrinking transistors; it’s about giving Fortinet enough transistor budget to tackle AI-driven security workloads—faster decryption, more concurrent threat-inspection streams, and possibly on-chip AI inference for automated policy decisions.

What to do now

For home users and consumers: Nothing. SP6 will not appear in retail products you can buy directly. If you’re a Fortinet customer through work, the IT team will handle lifecycle planning.

For enterprise network and security architects:
- Start tracking Fortinet’s public remarks about SP6. The company typically details new processors when appliance models are announced. Look for specific throughput numbers under realistic security-service loads, not just raw firewall bandwidth.
- If you’re in the middle of a FortiGate refresh cycle that doesn’t expire for another 12–18 months, you may want to pause and evaluate whether SP6-based models offer enough improvement to warrant a switch. Don’t base hardware decisions on speculation, but factor SP6 into your mid-term roadmap.
- Talk to your Fortinet account team about power-consumption targets and form-factor plans. A denser process could mean smaller branch devices or higher port density—details that affect rack space and cooling.

For procurement and supply-chain managers:
- Ask Fortinet where SP6 will be manufactured and packaged. The chip’s “Intel 4” label doesn’t specify a fab location. Fortinet may eventually disclose country-of-origin details that could satisfy compliance requirements for sensitive deployments.
- Consider the long-term implications: if Intel can prove itself as a reliable foundry for infrastructure chips, your hardware suppliers may have more sourcing options. That could ease price negotiation and reduce single-vendor risk, but don’t count on it yet.

For Intel investors and foundry watchers:
- The Fortinet deal alone won’t move the needle on Intel’s stock. But it’s a proof point for Lip-Bu Tan’s ability to convert foundry interest into signed customers. Watch for additional design wins on Intel 4 and Intel 3 from networking, automotive, and industrial companies—those verticals value mature, stable nodes.
- The real test remains 18A and 14A. Intel needs a high-volume external customer (think a smartphone SoC or a major AI accelerator) to justify its massive fab investments. That hasn’t happened yet.

Outlook

Intel reports second-quarter 2026 earnings on July 23—just days after this Fortinet announcement. The timing is convenient. Investors and analysts will press management on whether the Fortinet engagement is the start of a pipeline or an isolated win. We’ll hear about wafer volume, customer prepayments, and external foundry revenue trends. If Intel can point to other unnamed customers in the pipeline and offer a credible path to 18A commercial traction, the Fortinet deal could be seen as the first domino. Without that, it risks being a modest positive in a sea of uncertainty.

Fortinet, meanwhile, must get SP6 into production and into products. The chip will face rigorous certification, testing, and real-world deployment before anyone can judge the manufacturing quality. If Intel executes cleanly, SP6 becomes a durable reference for other networking and security ASIC designers. If yields disappoint or schedules slip, it reinforces the narrative that Intel Foundry still isn’t ready for prime time.

So don’t over-rotate on this announcement, but don’t ignore it either. It’s a practical step that turns a vague promise into something measurable—and for Intel Foundry, that’s an improvement.