Chip-giant (NASDAQ: INTC) agreed to acquire Tower Semiconductor, a specialty semiconductor manufacturer, 18 months ago. The deal is now officially dead. With China's regulators failing to sign off, Intel has terminated the transaction and will pay Tower a $353 million termination fee.

The end of the Tower deal is a blow to Intel's foundry ambitions, but it's not the end of the world. Intel has been pushing hard over the past year-and-a-half on its manufacturing process roadmap. It's been laying the foundation for rapid-fire growth in 2025 and beyond.

At the center of Intel's foundry strategy is its plan to roll out five new process nodes in four years. The company has struggled to bring new process nodes to volume production on time in the past. Notably, the company's 10nm process was originally slated to enter production in the first half of 2018, but it ultimately took until early 2021 for the first chips using the long-delayed process to be produced at volume.

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Source Fool.com