Intel Submits Ireland Fab Expansion Plan: $8 Billion Price Tag, With a 4 Year Lead Time
by Anton Shilov on February 13, 2019 3:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Semiconductors
- CPUs
- Intel
Intel has submitted a proposal to Irish authorities for the expansion of its manufacturing site near Leixlip. According to the plans, Intel is exploring the construction of a brand-new building – one larger than their previously proposal – which in particular strongly hints that the chipmaker would be installing EUV lithography equipment.
Intel originally received permission to build its new fab on the west-side of its Leixlip campus back in 2017. However the company never began construction, as it did not have a strategic plan in place for boosting manufacturing capacities. Last year the company formally decided to significantly boost its manufacturing capacities by building new fabs in Oregon, Ireland, and Israel, as well as to furnish its Fab 42 in Arizona. These expansions are being undertaken in a bid to ramp up Intel's capacity for their forthcoming 7 nm process, which relies on a combination of DUV and EUV lithography tools. But first, Intel needs to get permission from the local authorities, which is why it recently submitted its plans to Kildare County Council and was picked up by a local newspaper.
The proposed fab will reportedly take four years to build and will cost Intel around $8 billion. The company expects that the new production facility will employ 1600 people after it becomes fully operational. Importantly, this long cycle means that even if Intel started this year (and they likely won't), the fab would not be completed until 2023. So it's widely expected that Intel would be preparing the fab for 7 nm EUV, if not a more advanced manufacturing process. This new fab would in turn be joining Intel’s existing fab in Leixlip, which currently makes chips using the company’s 14 nm process technology.
Now that Intel has formally submitted its expansion plans to local authorities, it will take the latter some time to approve it. Therefore, according to the local media, Intel would start any actual construction “over the next year or so”. This, of course, is assuming the plan even makes it that far; the formal submission of the plan does not mean that Intel will build the fab, as the company's intentions tend to change with the market. While Intel has a roadmap for its global manufacturing network expansion, it still needs approval from local authorities before the company can commit money to the project.
Alll told, the Irish fab is the latest in a series of fab plans from Intel. Besides the four fabs in Arizona, Ireland, Israel, and Oregon, Intel is also in talks to build another $11 billion fab in Israel.
Related Reading:
- Intel Details Plans for Its Oregon Fab Expansion: D1X Phase 3
- Intel to Expand Production Capacities at Multiple Fabs
- Intel Considers $11 Billion Fab in Israel
- Israeli Parliament Approves Intel Fab 28 Expansion Grant
- Intel: EUV-Enabled 7nm Process Tech is on Track
- ASML to Ship 30 EUV Scanners in 2019: Faster EUV Tools Coming
Sources: Intel, Intel, The Irish Times
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close - Wednesday, February 13, 2019 - link
Ah, the famed V4G fab, hot on the heels of the C0X and D1X ones.IGTrading - Wednesday, February 13, 2019 - link
I'm amazed they will invest in anything but Israel ... but hey, way to go Ireland!Competition is always good! Thank you #AMD !
Samus - Thursday, February 14, 2019 - link
Ireland has an equally well-educated population and some insane corporate tax incentives. Just ask Apple.crotach - Thursday, February 14, 2019 - link
Vag, cocks and dicks? Someone is trolling heavily at Intel :)Duncan Macdonald - Wednesday, February 13, 2019 - link
Israel is still a target for many muslim groups in the middle east. Intel probably does not want all its eggs in one basket. (How much of that $8 billion Fab would be working after an airliner crashed into it? ) The loss of a Fab would be a severe financial hit to Intel but would be survivable - the loss of the equivalent of 4 or more Fabs might not be so easy to survivewumpus - Wednesday, February 13, 2019 - link
Not to mention the little issue of just how thirsty for water a fab can be. So of course Intel has fas here as well as Arizona and New Mexico (or more likely, those areas were willing to give Intel whatever subsidies it took to have those fabs in their town).It should be noted that "core", the architecture that brought Intel back from the disaster of Netbust (and outcompeted an aging athlon design) was designed in Israel. While later updates came from Oregon, they needed that initial push. So I'm sure they don't regret having a "presence" in Israel.
Calin - Thursday, February 14, 2019 - link
While the development team for Core was based in Israel, the Core architecture was an evolved version of the Pentium Pro not a completely new design.Topweasel - Thursday, February 14, 2019 - link
Not really they developed the Pentium-M which became the Core and Core duo (which was just a tweaked version of the Pentium-M and two Pentium-M's on one chip respectively) which was just tweaked version of the PIII. They did make changes for Conroe and those carried over to the first first gen Core i series (Nahelem) where they added IMC (and almost nothing else). But what we know of as the Core architecture now started with Sandybridge and was a major shift away from Nahelem. That was developed by the primary Intel development team.Oxford Guy - Monday, February 18, 2019 - link
It's unfortunate that our global economy is so mismanaged. It should be illegal everywhere for any community to subsidize any corporation.They're supposed to be making profit by benefitting us. We shouldn't have to pay bribe money for their pleasure.
taisingera - Wednesday, February 13, 2019 - link
Ireland is also a target for many muslim groups from the middle east. Ireland's government is bringing in many middle eastern migrants. (Ireland 2040 Plan)