Italy, Poland woo Intel for ‘chiplet’ packaging plant
The government in Rome would part-fund an investment that could be worth €4 billion (about US$4.7 billion) by providing public money and special terms to Intel on labour and energy costs, Reuters said referencing unnamed sources. One source said the spend on the assembly fab could go as high as €8 billion.
Potential Italian sites for a packaging fab that could create 1,000 direct jobs include: the Mirafiori region of Turin – home to the Fiat part of carmaker Stellantis – and Catania in Sicily where Franco-Italian chipmaker STMicroelectronics has a couple of wafer fabs.
“The government is preparing a very detailed offer with the aim of clinching a deal by the end of the year,” Reuters quoted one of the sources as saying.
Intel has already said it plans to build front-end wafer fabs in Europe to support foundry operations and help European equipment makers avoid the supply-chain issues currently plaguing the global electronics industry (see Intel in talks with Bavaria over wafer fab location and Intel’s European mega-fab could go to Galway, Ireland).
However, with the extreme R&D and capital cost of continuing with miniaturization attention is turning towards creating components from multiple smaller dies each optimized for a particular function and potentially made by multiple front-end fabs.
While, Germany, Ireland and France are vying with each other for Intel’s European front-end fab Italy is in competition with Poland, the report said.
Poland already has Intel operations but these are mainly focused on firmware and software for microprocessors.
In addition to a front-end fab and advanced assembly fab, Intel is looking to locate a research centre in Europe as part of an overall investment in Europe of €80 billion over the next decade, the report said.
Related links and articles:
News articles:
Intel in talks with Bavaria over wafer fab location
Intel to build two wafer fabs, be foundry for Europe
Intel seeks $10 billion subsidy for ‘EuroFab’
Intel’s European mega-fab could go to Galway, Ireland
EU proposes Chips Act to build technology sovereignty
