Intel Planning Global Capacity Increases
Over the past couple of months, an ongoing story is the Intel shortage. After delays to the 10nm process, the 14nm process supply has become bogged down. In order to meet customer demand, the company has been investing a lot into new fabs and production capacity. In an effort to better meet current and future demand, Chipzilla is announcing even more capacity increases at a number of current and new facilities.
Intel has earmarked a number of facilities for increased capacity. The company is upgrading the fabs in Oregon, Ireland, and Israel. For both Ireland and Israel, these are upgrades to current fabs to boost production. In terms of Oregon, that is an increase to the R&D fab. Beyond these 3, Intel is also working on an increased R&D capacity at the New Mexico facility for memory and storage. This will replace the current IMFT facilities as the Micron partnership is over.
Fab 42 Tooling For 7nm Process
Intel is also working to set up their Fab 42. This fab is one of the newer ones and located in Arizona. Fab 42 is important because it will be tooled for 7nm. With the 10nm delays, Intel cannot afford to slip up on 7nm. To work on the new process, the facility will have new DUV and EUV lithography tools. While 7nm is still a bit of an unknown at this point, we should expect it about 2021 or so.
Just like previous investments, these ones will increase costs for Chipzilla. However, the company has a ton of cash to burn and massive margins as well. It looks like AMD being competitive is stirring up the market and Intel is responding in force at last. Finally, Intel is also planning to use partner fabs going forwards. This means TSMC will help boost capacity, so long as TSMC fabs meet company standards.
