Intel’sfab near Magdeburg, Germany, will not only be the most advanced semiconductor production facility in Europe, but, according to CEO Pat Gelsinger, the most advanced fab in the world when it comes online. The fab will process wafers using post-18A process technologies and will be used to make products both for Intel as well as its Intel Foundry Services customers.
“This will be not only the most advanced manufacturing fab in Germany, the most advanced [chip] manufacturing in the world will occur at the Magdeburg site,” Gelsinger said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, broadcast byCNBC. “We are quite excited about getting that underway.”
The head of Intel did not specify which of Intel’s post-18A process technologies will be adopted in its Magdeburg facility, but only vaguely said they will be on the order of 1.5nm.
“[The Magdeburg fab will be] a cutting-edge fab when it comes online,” Gelsinger said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, broadcast byCNBC. “Our most advanced process technology, which are just soon to bring into manufacturing, what we call 18A, sub-2nm. [The Magdeburg fab] will be beyond that. So, this will be on the order of 1.5nm devices that we will build in Magdeburg.”
Intel is set to disclose its post-18A fabrication process roadmap inlate February, which is probably when the company will also outline which of its fabs (or rather sites) is set to first adopt one node or another. For now, we can only speculate regarding successors of what comes after Intel 18A, but rumor mill indicates that wemight see both Intel 16A and Intel 14A.
What is important is that Intel is determined to bring its leading-edge manufacturing to Europe, a rare occurrence in the semiconductor industry. Currently Intel’s Fab 34 near Leixlip, Ireland, is producing chips on Intel 4nm-class class process technology and is expected to start making Intel 3nm-class processors in the coming quarters. While for now Intel 4 and Intel 3 are the company’s most advanced nodes, they are behind TSMC’s N3 (3nm-class). By contrast, Intel expects its 18A and its successors to be ahead of the industry in terms of power, performance, and area characteristics.
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Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.
