Intel（Intel）latest financial report surpasses market expectations, driving the stock price to surge after hours, and also causing the market to reassess the transformation results after CEO Chen Liwu took over. Research firm Citrini said in an X post that among its “2026 年 26 個交易主題,” the 4th topic is “先進封裝”（Advanced Packaging）, whose core is the opportunity for Intel and its advanced packaging ecosystem to catch up; after Intel released its financial report, Citrini even said directly that this report “has a chance to become this year’s most outstanding earnings report.”
Intel 财報亮眼，營收預期展現信心
Link News previously reported that Intel’s first-quarter revenue grew 7% to $13.6 billion; earnings per share (EPS), excluding certain items, were $0.29, and its second-quarter revenue outlook was $13.8 billion to $14.8 billion, with the midpoint at $14.3 billion, above market expectations. After the earnings were released, Intel’s stock surged 20% after hours to $80, setting a new all-time high; since the lows of around $20 after Chen Liwu took over in March last year, INTC has risen 3 times.
(英特爾財測超預期，AI需求帶動CPU轉機，陳立武接掌後INTC已上漲3倍)
AI 需求不只帶動 GPU，CPU und Verpackung werden neu bepreist
The market in the past has mostly understood the AI semiconductor battlefield as NVIDIA vs. ASIC, TSMC vs. Intel, and Blackwell vs. TPU, but Citrini believes this framework ignores the real bottleneck: advanced packaging.
Citrini指出，Google TPU、Amazon Trainium、Meta MTIA und sogar OpenAI future self-developed chips—no matter who ultimately wins—will all require advanced packaging. That means the more ASIC plans there are among hyperscale cloud providers, the more beneficial it is for advanced packaging, because these designs are not substitutes for each other, but instead jointly consume finite packaging capacity.
This also explains why Intel’s earnings were repriced by the market. AI data centers need not only GPUs, but still heavily rely on server CPUs such as Xeon to coordinate compute logic; at the same time, as AI chips become bigger and closer to the limits of photomasks, designs must be split into multiple chiplets and then connected through advanced packaging. Packaging has shifted from being a back-end service in the past to a key architectural layer determining whether AI chips can truly deliver performance.
Intel muss TSMC nicht schlagen, die Chance liegt darin, überschüssige CoWoS-Nachfrage abzufangen
Citrini sieht the key in being bullish on Intel not as believing Intel can immediately fully overtake TSMC in advanced manufacturing, but that Intel’s EMIB und Foveros could become alternative export channels under conditions of TSMC’s CoWoS supply constraints.
EMIB ist Intels 2.5D-Verpackungslösung, die verschiedene Chips über einen Silizium-Brückenverbinder verbinden kann; Foveros ist hingegen eine 3D-Stacking-Verpackungstechnologie. Citrini believes that this gives Intel the opportunity to provide a “chips can be manufactured by TSMC or Samsung, but advanced packaging is done by Intel” model, becoming a relief valve for overflow demand for TSMC’s CoWoS.
In the era when AI chips move toward multi-die, multi-chiplet, and multi-HBM memory stacking, packaging is no longer merely a cost center, but the main battlefield that determines performance, yield, and supply chain bottlenecks. If Intel can first enter the supply chain for Apple, cloud giants, and AI ASIC customer ecosystems through packaging, and then combine that with the 18A process and the advantages of U.S. local manufacturing, it could gradually expand the credibility of its foundry business.
Chen Liwu bringt Intel zurück an den Tisch der AI-Lieferkette
Link News previously reported that Intel’s foundry services (IFS) generated first-quarter revenue of $5.4 billion, up 16% year over year, showing that the strategy to transform into a wafer foundry has already demonstrated initial results. Although most revenue still comes from within Intel today, the market’s imagination of external customers and AI demand has led to a renewed view of Intel’s value.
After Chen Liwu took over, Intel’s story is no longer just “playing catch-up with TSMC process technology,” but more practically moving into AI CPUs, advanced packaging, U.S. semiconductor localization, and balance-sheet repairs. This has rebranded Intel from a “lost giant that missed the AI GPU wave” into a “potential fill-in in the supply chain gap for AI infrastructure.”
Citrini’s advanced packaging deals are not only betting on Intel itself; they also include beneficiaries in Intel’s AP ecosystem such as Amkor, Kulicke & Soffa, BESI, and others. If AI ASICs and chiplet architectures continue to expand, packaging capacity, packaging equipment, and OSAT firms could all become beneficiaries of the next phase.
This article 陳立武封神！Citrini 評 Intel 「今年最出色財報」盼承接台積電 CoWoS 外溢需求 最早出現於 鏈新聞 ABMedia。
