The Fortinet Intel 4 agreement puts Intel on the hook to design, package, and manufacture Fortinet’s sixth-generation security processor, called SP6, the companies announced July 21. The deal gives Intel 4 its first named external foundry customer about three years after the process entered production, a useful win for Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, though it lands on a mature node rather than the 18A or 14A processes Intel has been pitching as its foundry future.
Intel told Tom’s Hardware the Fortinet work fits the Intel 4 strategy it described years ago, including custom networking ASICs. Intel’s public record from that period is less tidy. Its 2021 process roadmap tied Intel 4 to two internal products, Meteor Lake for PCs and Granite Rapids for servers, without naming foundry customers or custom ASIC work.
What is the Fortinet Intel 4 deal?
Fortinet’s SP6 is the next version of its in-house firewall processor, the silicon used to accelerate security functions in FortiGate systems. Intel 4 is Intel’s EUV manufacturing process that reached high-volume production at Fab 34 in Leixlip, Ireland, in September 2023, initially for the compute tile in Meteor Lake-based Core Ultra chips.
Intel will handle the SP6 design, packaging, and fabrication. The companies’ wording also points to a disaggregated design, which suggests Fortinet is moving toward a chiplet-style processor for the first time in its SP line.
Why is Intel 4 an odd foundry win?
Intel had previously positioned Intel 3, rather than Intel 4, as the first of its newer processes available to outside foundry customers. At VLSI 2022, Intel said it was not building a high-density library for Intel 4 and described Intel 3 as the first new node for what was then Intel Foundry Services. A 2024 Intel foundry blog post called Intel 3 the company’s first leading-edge foundry process, and Intel’s 2024 annual report listed external customer processes including 18A, Intel 3, Intel 7, Intel 16, and a UMC-linked 12nm node. Intel 4 was absent.
Ericsson did ship RAN Compute processors on Intel 4, announced in November 2023. That was a bespoke Intel-Ericsson project, while Ericsson’s formal foundry agreement with Intel covered 18A. Fortinet is therefore the first named customer buying Intel 4 as a foundry service, and Intel’s first named cybersecurity customer on any of its nodes.
What does Fortinet get from changing suppliers?
Fortinet’s 2025 annual report names Renesas and Toshiba America as contract manufacturers for its ASICs, using foundries in Taiwan and Japan operated by TSMC or by the contract manufacturers themselves. Its current SP5, announced in February 2023, is a monolithic 7nm Arm-based system-on-chip tied to that supply chain. SP6 moves the next flagship security processor into Intel’s manufacturing flow.
Fortinet has already shown why it cares. During the chip shortage, the company redesigned the FortiGate 70F, 600F, and 3700F to accept alternate components. CMO John Maddison told SDxCentral at the time that Fortinet would not wait for parts to arrive in 2023. In February, CEO Ken Xie said Fortinet had about six million FortiGates deployed and described the company as the firewall unit-share leader with 55% share.
How much does this help Intel Foundry?
The deal may help keep Intel 4 capacity occupied at Fab 34 as Meteor Lake ages out and 18A-based Panther Lake ramps in 2026. Intel sold a 49% stake in Fab 34 to Apollo-managed funds for $11.2 billion in June 2024, then bought it back in April 2026 for $14.2 billion using $7.7 billion in cash and $6.5 billion in new debt. That only looks smart if the fab stays busy.
Fortinet will not fix Intel Foundry’s economics by itself. Intel Foundry reported $307 million in external revenue for 2025, up from $159 million a year earlier, against $17.8 billion in total foundry revenue and a $10.3 billion operating loss. External revenue was $174 million in the first quarter of 2026. ServeTheHome estimates SP6 feeds only part of Fortinet’s roughly $2 billion annual hardware stream.
Tan told CNBC in May that Intel expected multiple foundry customer commitments in the second half of 2026. Fortinet gives Intel a real customer name and likely shipping volume. The larger proof point, a major external commitment on 18A or 14A, is still missing.
This story draws on original reporting from Tom's Hardware.
