Intel Advances IDM2.0 Chip Manufacturing to 2024

Since Intel's CEO Pat Gelsinger took the helm, it has attached great importance to technology and launched the IDM2.0 strategy. It not only conducts rapid research and development in technology, but is also ambitious in chip manufacturing.

After years of process iteration delays, chip giant Intel has now decided to advance its processor manufacturing plan based on the 18A process to the second half of 2024. Through the Mod3 expansion program, the company is expanding its D1X plant in Oregon. The new building will be 270,000 square feet to house the largest new chip fabrication facility.

Intel had long lagged TSMC and Samsung in manufacturing modernization before Pat Kissinger returned to the company as CEO last year.

With a new CEO in place, Intel has finally reworked its roadmap and will bring five manufacturing process improvements over four years -- Intel 7, Intel 4, Intel 8, and Intel 20A and Intel 18A.

Each iteration of the process technology brings positive improvements in power performance. And Intel, which has spent tens of billions of dollars on this, apparently hopes to catch up between 2024 and 2025, and regain its glory by pulling the focus of chip manufacturing from Asia back to the United States.

At the newly named Gordon Moore Park in Oregon, Intel opened a new chip manufacturing facility dedicated to next-generation manufacturing processes. At the same time, its D1X fab has also invested $3 billion in Mod3 expansion funds.

After the success, Intel is expected to promote the D1X process in the global layout of the fab. If the target can be successfully completed ahead of schedule in the second half of 2024, it also bodes well for the company's foundry business unit.

In order to poach chip foundry business from TSMC and Samsung, Intel has revealed that IFS customers can use the company's Intel 3 and Intel 18A processes. In February, Pat Kissinger showed 18A wafers based on test chips, but has yet to disclose more details on its progress.

Closer to home, the new 270,000-square-foot Mod3 building has ceilings high enough and floors sturdy enough to accommodate the latest machines used to etch circuits onto wafers of silicon.

The microchips are ready for delivery after months of processing steps, said Ryan Russell, Intel's vice president of logic technology development.

Finally, Intel was once behind TSMC/Samsung in advanced EUV lithography processes. But with the installation of the first EVU equipment at Fab34 in Ireland, it means the company will be playing catch-up.

Intel Ireland Fab 34 chip manufacturing plant ushered in the first EUV lithography machine

Chip giant Intel has completed the installation of its first extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machine at Fab 34 in Leixlip, Ireland. The company only started installing its first chip-making equipment at the fab two months ago. The EUV lithography machine manufactured by ASML in the Netherlands was first shipped to Hillsboro, Oregon, USA, and then to Europe.

It's unclear why Intel would have the machine circle the world so far, and one speculation is that Intel conducted early testing in Oregon to make sure the lithography machine met the company's stringent requirements.

The machine is also expected to be the first EUV lithography machine to be installed at Fab 34 in Ireland and to serve as a key enabler for Intel's 7nm (Intel 4) process technology.

A total of 4 Boeing aircraft of an unknown model are said to be used for the equipment to be airlifted and then transported by road to Fab 34 by 35 trucks.

Finally, Intel officials revealed that these "tools" have been shipped in batches since December last year, but were not assembled until recently.