Intel shares rose 1.5% in premarket trading Monday, opening near $89.47, after reports that South Korean memory chipmaker SK Hynix is evaluating Intel Foundry as a supplier of base dies for its next-generation HBM4E memory chips.

A base die is the logic chip at the bottom of a high-bandwidth memory (HBM) stack, managing communication between the memory chips and processors such as GPUs. As HBM technology advances, these components are becoming more complex and more expensive to produce. Demand for HBM has grown sharply alongside the buildout of AI data centers, where the memory is paired with accelerators from vendors such as Nvidia, making HBM one of the most contested segments of the memory market among SK Hynix, Samsung, and Micron.

Currently, TSMC manufactures the base dies for SK Hynix's HBM4 products using a 12nm-class process. According to industry sources cited in a Herald Economy report, those TSMC-produced dies can cost roughly three to four times more than the core dies SK Hynix makes in-house. That cost gap is reportedly prompting SK Hynix to explore alternatives, and Intel Foundry has emerged as a potential option.

For Intel, securing even a portion of that business would be a meaningful win for its contract manufacturing arm, which is still working to expand its external customer base. Winning an external customer of SK Hynix's scale would also mark a notable milestone in CEO Lip-Bu Tan's effort to establish Intel Foundry as a credible alternative to TSMC for advanced logic production.

Separately, SK Hynix has already shipped samples of its 12-layer HBM4E, which offers data speeds of up to 16Gbps per pin along with improved power efficiency.

A Deal That Isn't Confirmed

Investors should be cautious about reading too much into the report. On August 31, SK Hynix said it could not confirm the details of its technology roadmap and noted that some information in the reports was inconsistent with the facts. Neither company has announced a deal.

Even so, the report was enough to move INTC in premarket trading, underscoring how closely the market is tracking Intel's foundry progress. Any formal agreement would likely be watched closely as a signal of whether third-party chipmakers are willing to trust Intel's manufacturing processes for leading-edge products.

Institutional and Insider Buying Picks Up

Intel has seen a wave of institutional activity recently. Oxford Financial Group purchased a new position valued at around $1.15 million in the second quarter. NewEdge Advisors boosted its holdings by 29.6% during the same period, while Sei Investments increased its stake by 9.9%. Institutional investors now own 64.53% of INTC stock.

On the insider side, CEO Lip-Bu Tan bought 105,263 INTC shares at $95 per share on August 11, a transaction worth roughly $10 million. The stock now trades below that level.

Intel's most recent earnings, reported July 23, came in well above expectations. The company posted earnings of $0.42 per share against estimates of $0.21, while revenue of $16.13 billion topped the $14.43 billion consensus. Revenue rose 25.2% year over year.

The company set third-quarter 2026 EPS guidance at $0.38, and analysts on average expect full-year earnings of $1.00 per share.

On the analyst front, the stock carries a Hold consensus on TipRanks, with five Buy ratings, 24 Holds, and two Sells. The average price target of $116.84 implies roughly 31% upside from current levels. MarketBeat data shows a broader consensus of one Strong Buy, 15 Buys, 31 Holds, and three Sells, with an average price target of $107.46.

INTC has surged 142.5% year-to-date, with a 12-month trading range of $23.68 to $142.35.

Source: CoinCentral