Semiconductor-giant (NASDAQ: INTC) is focused on regaining its manufacturing lead over TSMC while building out a foundry business of its own. The company is in the process of bringing five new advanced manufacturing nodes to volume production within a span of four years. That effort will culminate with the Intel 20A and Intel 18A processes, both expected to be ready by the end of 2024.

These new cutting-edge processes will be necessary for Intel to convince chip designers to use its foundry to manufacture ultra-fast, ultra-efficient chips that power smartphones and other devices. But there are other types of chips that don't benefit from the latest and greatest manufacturing process. Instead, they need a mature, inexpensive process that can deliver adequate performance and efficiency while keeping costs down.

That's where Intel's "Intel 16" manufacturing process comes in. Intel 16 is a rejiggered version of a mature node that Intel began using back in 2018, optimized for low-cost and low-power chips. MediaTek, which designs a wide variety of chips that go into 2 billion devices each year, announced a partnership with Intel last year that aimed to bring some of those chips over to Intel's foundry using the Intel 16 process.

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Source Fool.com