Intel and Tower Ink Major Foundry Deal, $300 Million Investment (techcrunch.com) 13
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Two weeks after Intel said it would cancel its plan to acquire Tower Semiconductor for $5.4 billion amidst pushback from regulators, the two companies intend to work together anyway. Intel today said that it would provide foundry services and 300mm manufacturing capacity to Tower. As part of the deal, Tower would use Intel's plant in New Mexico, operated by Intel Foundry Services (IFS), investing up to $300 million to "acquire and own equipment and other fixed assets" that would be installed in the manufacturing facility.
The deal will give Tower a new capacity corridor, it said, of "over 600,000 photo layers per month" to meet expected demand for 300mm chips. The deal will mean that Intel will be manufacturing Tower's 65-nanometer power management BCD (bipolar-CMOS-DMOS) flows. Tower itself also owns its own manufacturing facilities in owns manufacturing facilities in Israel (150mm and 200mm), the U.S. (200mm), Japan (200mm and 300mm) and soon in Italy in partnership with STMicroelectronics. "We launched Intel Foundry Services with a long-term view of delivering the world's first open system foundry that brings together a secure, sustainable, and resilient supply chain with the best of Intel and our ecosystem. We're thrilled that Tower sees the unique value we provide and chose us to open their 300mm U.S. capacity corridor," said Stuart Pann, Intel SVP and GM of Intel Foundry Services, in a statement.
"We are excited to continue working with Intel," added Tower CEO Russell Ellwanger. "As we look to the future, our primary focus is to expand our customer partnerships through high-scale manufacturing of leading-edge technology solutions. This collaboration with Intel allows us to fulfill our customers' demand roadmaps, with a particular focus on advanced power management and radio frequency silicon on insulator (RF SOI) solutions, with full process flow qualification planned in 2024. We see this as a first step towards multiple unique synergistic solutions with Intel."
The deal will give Tower a new capacity corridor, it said, of "over 600,000 photo layers per month" to meet expected demand for 300mm chips. The deal will mean that Intel will be manufacturing Tower's 65-nanometer power management BCD (bipolar-CMOS-DMOS) flows. Tower itself also owns its own manufacturing facilities in owns manufacturing facilities in Israel (150mm and 200mm), the U.S. (200mm), Japan (200mm and 300mm) and soon in Italy in partnership with STMicroelectronics. "We launched Intel Foundry Services with a long-term view of delivering the world's first open system foundry that brings together a secure, sustainable, and resilient supply chain with the best of Intel and our ecosystem. We're thrilled that Tower sees the unique value we provide and chose us to open their 300mm U.S. capacity corridor," said Stuart Pann, Intel SVP and GM of Intel Foundry Services, in a statement.
"We are excited to continue working with Intel," added Tower CEO Russell Ellwanger. "As we look to the future, our primary focus is to expand our customer partnerships through high-scale manufacturing of leading-edge technology solutions. This collaboration with Intel allows us to fulfill our customers' demand roadmaps, with a particular focus on advanced power management and radio frequency silicon on insulator (RF SOI) solutions, with full process flow qualification planned in 2024. We see this as a first step towards multiple unique synergistic solutions with Intel."
300mm "chips"? (Score:3)
Who wrote this god-awful drivel? Who doesn't know and/or understand the difference between a wafer and a chip?
It's not surprising they wanted to be anonymous...
Wafers not Chips (Score:3, Informative)
1960s tech (Score:2)
It's good to see more investment in robust, reliable 1960s technology once again. Those 300mm chips, made with discrete components, resist much better to nuclear irradiation and cosmic rays than anything we have today.
Next step: vacuum tubes for even better durability and resiliency.
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The smallest feature on the chip is 30 cm wide.
Everyone knows that the node name has just been a marketing term for years, the actual elements on the chip are probably quite a bit larger than that.
Units (Score:2)
Tower Ink? Major Foundry? (Score:2)
I thought Intel was getting into the ink business.
And what is this Major Foundry? Sounds like some jazz band.
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That title sentence no verb
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You may have meant this as a joke, or at least referencing the other person's parsing it as such... But here "Ink" is the verb.
It would help if the headline were written as "Intel and Tower Semiconductor Ink Major Foundry Deal"
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And what is this Major Foundry?
I thought he was the next astronaut candidate after the loss of Major Tom?