Intel commits $7bn to 7nm Arizona fab
The announcement was made by President Trump and Intel CEO Brian Krzanich at the White House.
However, Intel plans to spread the spending out and completion of Fab 42 will take 3 or 4 years, Intel said, by which time will create about 3,000 direct jobs and 10,000 jobs in total in Arizona. This could also be difficult news for Intel employees at manufacturing sites in Ireland and Israel. In Ireland plans to build a wafer fab in Leixlip near Dublin have been scaled back and there is as yet no decision on whether they will be implemented at all (see Report: Intel scales back plans for Leixlip).
The decision to invest in Arizona and make the announcement with President Trump may reflect a shift towards more pronounced US-first policy at Intel.
Intel did not give information on how large the Fab 42 cleanroom would be or what would be the manufacturing capacity. Nor did it indicate whether any consideration would be give to manufacturing on larger wafer sizes than the 300mm-diameter that is currently the largest standard.
Intel will find itself in race to 7nm against such rivals as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. although the winners of that race will be earning the right to make the world’s most demanding and highest performance chips.
These 7nm chips will be the high performance processors that go into supercomputers, data centers and enable artificial intelligence, more advanced cars and transportation services, breakthroughs in medical research and treatment.
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