Intel Lands a Preliminary Apple Chip Deal and an SK Hynix Packaging Partnership — Is INTC Still a Buy at $124?

WSJ and Bloomberg reported that Apple had reached a preliminary deal to manufacture chips for some Apple products. Talks reportedly took more than a year, and they’re part of Apple’s efforts to expand its foundry base beyond TSMC, as the US government pressures Apple to bring chip production back to US soil. This isn’t a finalized deal, as a “preliminary” means that the terms are agreed in principle, but there will still be time to lock in execution milestones, node, and volume. The deal size is critical. Apple is a top chip customer in the world; it spends tens of billions in TSMC chipmaking capacity annually. 

Any shift, even partial, is $10 billion-plus in annual revenue for Intel Foundry, a segment that reported $5.4 billion in total 2026 first-quarter revenue, with only ~$174 million in revenue from external customers. An Apple account at any scale is a huge step toward foundry profitability; CFO David Zinsner guided 2027 as the year of profitability for the segment. INTC rose 14% to 19% on May 8 to 9 on this news.

The second catalyst was technical, but just as crucial, maybe even more so commercially. According to May 11 to May 12 reports, SK Hynix is testing Intel’s EMIB (Embedded Multi-die Interconnect Bridge) advanced packaging for incorporating HBM with AI accelerators and GPUs. The CoWoS (Chip on Wafer on Substrate) solution has been the go-to package for advanced AI chips for the last few years, as Nvidia H100 and H200 GPU packages all use CoWoS, so TSMC CoWoS availability is a bottleneck on the AI hardware side of things.

If Intel’s EMIB package is a viable substitute to CoWoS for the HBM integration work, Intel could start earning a new-foundry-related revenue stream in advanced packaging, SK Hynix is a number-two memory maker worldwide and an essential HBM supplier to Nvidia, and this test package to Intel’s tech is direct validation of Intel’s ability to package products for sale to Nvidia. 

CFO Zinsner guided to advanced packaging revenue of billions per customer at scale and named Amazon, Cisco, SpaceX, and Tesla. SK Hynix would add AI accelerator HBM packaging to the list.

INTC is $124.36, up 5.78% on the session. The 2H chart shows an impulse candle that broke the ascending channel and red MA resistance levels on heavy volume, as shown by the volume bar below. The yellow and cyan averages are beginning to fan up into the channel from the $115 to $117 area. 

The RSI is pushing strongly into overbought territory with positive divergences on the previous two lows. This was a resolved falling wedge into an upward breakout move. The next major resistances are at $130.39 and then $136.44. 

INTC Price Chart - Source: BingX

The immediate supports to watch for the breakdown are between $117.50 and $115.66, the area that should not give up on a close to make this structure work.

Long at $125 plus, confirmed break of the channel

• Target 1: $130.39, resistance
• Target 2: $136.44, extension/all-time high area
• Supports: $117.50 to $115.66, the averages should hold here; the breakout relies on it
• Stop: Daily close below $117.50, the breakout structure would then fail

Since our all time high analysis on April 29, the bull case has two new legs: the Apple deal in whatever stage it currently is, serves as a proof of concept that Intel Foundry is a legitimate Tier-1 foundry to TSMC for Intel's most valuable customer. The SK Hynix packaging test as an example of the possibility that Intel EMIB can compete with TSMC CoWoS in the fast growing AI accelerator packaging sector. Add Tesla Terafab 14A win, Google Cloud CPU deal, CHIPS Act stake and six straight earnings beats under CEO Lip-Bu Tan and the institutional buyers responsible for 227 million shares on April 29 are more than a story, they are pricing in Intel foundry revenue growth not yet factored into the consensus $65-$85 analyst targets.

The bear case is that it's too much, too soon and a Muzuho $124 Neutral is at the share price, consensus $65-$85 is far below. Benchmark $105 Buy is below price. GAAP net loss and negative free cash flow continue. The foundry is reportedly still losing $2.4B a quarter in operating income. Q2 will be reported in late July, the first test to see if Apple and SK Hynix are transitioning from trial to business. Until then, expect trading on deal flow and sentiment.

Intel at $124 is not a "recovery" trade, it's a re-rating trade. Two of the biggest commercial confirmations of the foundry thesis after the Tesla Terafab announcement are Apple chip deal and SK Hynix packaging partnership. Channel breakout and big volume has price targeting $130.39 and $136.44 on a support at $117.50. 

Bear is $124 prices in transactions that aren't closed and a foundry still losing $2.4B a quarter. Bull is consensus analyst targets are wrong and will be raised significantly once Q2 results show deal pipeline is generating revenue. Q2 is late July.