Intel To Spend $20 Billion To Build Two New Chip Fabs In Arizona (cnbc.com) 59
phalse phace writes: During today's "Intel Unleashed: Engineering the Future" webcast, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger gave an update on the company's future plans and developments, one of which includes a $20 billion investment to build two new chip fabs in Arizona.
The new factories are expected to "become a major provider of foundry capacity in the U.S. and Europe" to serve the global demand for semiconductor manufacturing. "To deliver this vision, Intel is establishing a new standalone business unit, Intel Foundry Services (IFS), led by semiconductor industry veteran Dr. Randhir Thakur. IFS will be differentiated from other foundry offerings with a combination of leading-edge process technology and packaging, committed capacity in the U.S. and Europe, and a world-class IP portfolio for customers, including x86 cores as well as ARM and RISC-V ecosystem IPs." "Gelsinger said the foundry business will compete in a market potentially worth $100 billion by 2025," reports CNBC. "A slide displayed by Intel suggested that companies including Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Qualcomm could be customers for the business."
The company is also partnering with IBM to improve chip logic and packaging technologies, which will "enhance the competitiveness of the U.S. semiconductor industry and support key U.S. government initiatives."
The new factories are expected to "become a major provider of foundry capacity in the U.S. and Europe" to serve the global demand for semiconductor manufacturing. "To deliver this vision, Intel is establishing a new standalone business unit, Intel Foundry Services (IFS), led by semiconductor industry veteran Dr. Randhir Thakur. IFS will be differentiated from other foundry offerings with a combination of leading-edge process technology and packaging, committed capacity in the U.S. and Europe, and a world-class IP portfolio for customers, including x86 cores as well as ARM and RISC-V ecosystem IPs." "Gelsinger said the foundry business will compete in a market potentially worth $100 billion by 2025," reports CNBC. "A slide displayed by Intel suggested that companies including Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Qualcomm could be customers for the business."
The company is also partnering with IBM to improve chip logic and packaging technologies, which will "enhance the competitiveness of the U.S. semiconductor industry and support key U.S. government initiatives."
Will it be NSA-free ? (Score:2, Informative)
Asking for a friend.
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Not to feed a troll, but Phoenix has become a tech center because of its large Indian population.
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Chicken/Egg argument, large Indian population moved to Phoenix because tech jobs abound
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Phoenix has very clean air, in spite of the industrial strength air conditioning needs. These fabs need air 37 billion times cleaner than an operating room.
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Intel has had a large presence in Chandler, AZ for decades. Phoenix became a tech center because of Intel and Motorola building really big manufacturing plants there in the 80s and 90s.
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First, Intel would need to actually have the ability to manufacture semiconductors at a state-of-the-art fabrication process. They're behind.
Re: Fab news for nerds (Score:2)
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AMD tried with ARM server CPUs, but were perhaps a few years ahead of their time, or did not execute well. They produced the Opteron A1100 series in 2016, and planned a K12 [wikipedia.org] successor for 2017 that was quietly killed before release.
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Given how stuffs are going, you might end up with an AMD CPU and intel GPU
Is Arizona the right place? (Score:5, Interesting)
So part of the chip shortage is due to drought, right, so maybe somewhere that isn't a desert would be a better choice?
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Dang it! Beat me to it. My thoughts exactly.
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hahaha, that problem is in Taiwan. Which strangely enough is surrounded by a whole ocean of water, maybe they should up their solar desalinization game eh?
Re:Is Arizona the right place? (Score:5, Interesting)
So part of the chip shortage is due to drought, right, so maybe somewhere that isn't a desert would be a better choice?
No, none of the shortage is due to drought. TSMC was at pains to claim that they anticipate no slowdowns due to lack of water. Reservoirs are low, but not depleted, and they still anticipate the monsoon season arriving in time to refill them before water becomes an issue.
It's a combination of many small factors causing the shortage, and it affects some industries more than others. The auto industry dug their own hole by severely reducing their orders, thinking that people wouldn't be buying as many cars. Meanwhile cryptocurrency miners, the release of two new game consoles, and the major rollout of 5G-capable phones are sucking up loads of fab space. Consumer spending has radically altered, though not permanently. But nobody went to Disney World last year, so they have literally thousands of surplus dollars. They're spending them on home improvements (new decks are in such demand that building supply companies are temporarily discontinuing higher end planking products in order to free up production capacity for high demand lower tier products) and electronic toys, from consoles to phones.
And last but not least, specifically in the US, the Trump administration banned doing business with China's SMIC, a fab company responsible for 10% of global chip production. The cheap stuff that's in everything. Ten percent may not sound like much, but in a world of just-in-time inventories, it's a major displacement.
And yeah, if the monsoon is late in Taiwan, TSMC could suddenly be in trouble, making the problem even worse before it gets better.
As for the desert, chip fabs don't use so much water. There are many many industries which use much more. The available water is sufficient for their needs. Everybody is anxious to build in Arizona because Intel has 4 operating fabs there already, and has been operating fabs there since 1980. There's a local labor force and an established ecosystem of suppliers. Shenzhen, China has demonstrated how valuable having a local industrial supply chain can be, and chip manufacturers are eager to replicate that success. Arizona is the place for that in the US. The advantage is sufficient to outweigh the need for some clever engineering of water usage and hard bargaining to secure the supply.
Re: Is Arizona the right place? (Score:3)
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Yeah, because water availability in Taipei has a whole lot to do with anything going on in Arizona.
Forgotten artifact. (Score:2)
The company is also partnering with IBM to improve chip logic and packaging technologies, which will "enhance the competitiveness of the U.S. semiconductor industry and support key U.S. government initiatives."
Maybe will bring back how to do this kind of packaging.
IBM module [youtu.be]
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What a great video
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"Flamin' Hot" Fritos were a disappointment.
So no outsourcing to TSMC? (Score:3)
This is going to look like a brilliant decision when we go to war with China and Intel is on US soil with two brand new 10 billion dollar fabs.
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Unless they fail to make EUV work commercially and are forced into it any way. I suspect pellicles will be a poor replacement for TSMC magic.
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Re:So no outsourcing to TSMC? (Score:5, Informative)
fun fact, TSMC has announced $30B in new chip fabs in Az as well
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Indeed; an important part of TSMC will still be in operation beyond the Chinese blockade.
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The first thing that would happen to those labs in a war with China would be them getting vapourised and falling all over New Mexico and Colorado as radioactive fallout.
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"...He who feels it knows it..."
Bob Marley
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For various values of "war" I suppose.
In a trade war, Intel could see some pretty good business if they are planning on also taking on contract fab work. In a shooting war, these would become neutron-activated particulate ash propelled into the stratosphere, just like the fabs in Shenzen.
Maybe (Score:3)
Maybe they should invest $20B into developing something you'd actually want to buy first
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I still can't figure out which of their security flaws are fixed in hardware, which are fixed in microcode, and which have no fixes at present.
You'd think a clear page with all of that info listed in several tables by processor would exist. It does not appear to.
Re:Maybe (Score:4, Insightful)
> You'd think a clear page with all of that info listed in several tables by processor would exist. It does not appear to.
It would exist if the answers were favorable.
Not the worst choice (Score:5, Insightful)
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and no water, something that a silicon fab is using in large quantities
Re:Not the worst choice (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, Arizona has water management plans with large reserves kept as ground water
We actually take treated effluent and pump it into the ground, then pump it out downstream, treat it and use it for drinking water
FYI, we also work closely with fabs to both supply needed resources and monitor them closely to assure they are not polluting common resources
Re:Not the worst choice (Score:5, Informative)
Intel builds out water reclamation plants for each of their Fabs in the US where they claim to return near 100% of the water used directly back to the aquifer.
Re: Not the worst choice (Score:3)
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I'm thinking that you have never been in a fab and just thought HF sounds scary, however hydrogen fluoride readily dissolves in water and is referred to as hydrofluoric acid (HFA) in its dissolved form. It is present in a variety of over-the-counter products at concentrations of 6–12%.
While HF will dissolve your bones through flesh, solvents like TCE have been the culprits in more than a few groundwater contamination incidents.
The result is that all of the old tech manufacturing plants as well as all
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Yeah, because Motorola and Intel haven't operated fabs in Chandler for literally decades.
They might know a few things about sourcing water in Arizona from already operating there for a really long time.
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Not in Massachusetts anymore (Score:4, Informative)
The CNBC article says "Intel currently operates four factories, called “wafer fabs,” in the United States. In addition to its site in Arizona, which is being expanded, it also has fabs in Massachusetts, New Mexico and Oregon. It also makes chips in Ireland, Israel and has a single fab in China."
The Hudson, Massachusetts fab was once DEC's, where Alpha (and VAX) processors were made. DEC sold the site to Intel as part of a patent infringement settlement. Intel ran the fab for many years later, even though it was not a "copy exactly" operation, it did very well. Eventually it became unworkable to keep updating the Hudson fab and it was demolished a few years ago. Intel still has engineering offices there.
Water... (Score:1)
Large quantities are needed for chip fabrication.
Where is all this water going to come from in Arizona? The already overdrawn Colorado River? Groundwater? Where?
Re: Water... (Score:1)
Itâ(TM)s not going to be piped in...
Colorado (Score:2)
We shall see... (Score:2)
Let's see if Biden does anything to support this effort, or is just going to fund building more windmills and trains to nowhere.