Intel's Foundry Growth Runs Through Altera, a Customer It Sold and Still Partly Owns
External foundry revenue jumped from $22 million to $293 million in a year, and Intel's own filing says the rise came primarily from Altera crossing the corporate boundary after Silver Lake bought control. With Altera's IPO paper now filed, both sides of that trade have a stake in the number reading as growth.
Vincent Jiang · 3 min read
The boundary moved, the wafers did not
Altera is the FPGA maker Intel bought for about $16.7 billion in 2015 and sold control of in September 2025, when Silver Lake paid $4.46 billion for 51% at an $8.75 billion valuation; Intel kept 49% 1. The wafers kept flowing after the sale closed. What moved was the consolidation line, and that moved line is most of the foundry momentum now priced into INTC at $120.00 2.
A $293 million outside quarter in a factory that lost $2.1 billion
The June quarter put Intel Foundry segment revenue at $5.8 billion and its operating loss at $2.1 billion 3. External customers supplied $293 million of that, about five cents on the foundry dollar 3. Roughly $5.5 billion of the segment was Intel buying from Intel, sales that vanish on consolidation 3.
The filing names its own reason
The outside line was $22 million a year earlier, and the 10-Q calls the $271 million increase one driven "primarily due to Altera's transition to an external customer" following the September 12, 2025 deconsolidation 3. The same filing prices the traffic: $181 million of June-quarter revenue from wafer manufacturing services to Altera, a related party under a wafer manufacturing and sale agreement 3. Intel publishes no bridge between the two lines; the pairing points to one customer.
One quarter against three years
External revenue was $547 million in 2023, fell to $159 million in 2024 and recovered to $307 million in 2025, a year that counts Altera as external only from September 12 4. The single June 2026 quarter came within $14 million of matching all of last year 34.
One June quarter ran at nearly four times the 2025 outside pace
Data
| External foundry revenue per quarter | |
|---|---|
| 2023 avg | $136.8M |
| 2024 avg | $39.8M |
| 2025 avg | $76.8M |
| Q2 2026 | $293M |
Fortinet is real, and it is not revenue yet
The strongest outside exhibit is Fortinet, in Fortinet's own July 29 results: a strategic collaboration to develop Security Processor 6 that pairs Fortinet's security-silicon expertise with Intel's design, packaging and manufacturing 5. It was announced after the June quarter closed and allocates no foundry revenue. Altera's repeat business is real business too. Neither converts an ownership change into a franchise; when The Inference traced "Intel 14A Courts Eight Giants on Paper While TSMC Collects Cash" on September 29, the giants were paper, not cash.
Both sides now have an IPO to think about
Altera's parent confidentially filed a draft S-1 on September 15, and Reuters reports the listing could raise more than $2 billion 61. Chief Executive Raghib Hussain said in July he was "preparing for an eventual public listing" 1. Silver Lake's Altera gets a captive supplier and a growth exhibit, Intel's multiple gets the momentum headline, and Intel holders supplied about $20 billion of fresh equity in August to fund the factories 1.
The settling reading is the Q3 filing, due in November, against one advance-published call: external revenue stays below 10% of foundry segment revenue including Altera 7. Until then, the growth line is a customer Intel sold, buying its way back onto the revenue line.
Deepdive
AI-generated from this story and its cited sources. Not investment advice.
