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Intel announced on Tuesday that it will spend $20 billion to build two major factories in Arizona.
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The news comes amid a worldwide chip shortage that is snarling industries from automobiles to electronics and worries the U.S. is falling behind in semiconductor manufacturing.
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The announcement signals that Intel will continue to focus on manufacturing.
“Intel is and will remain a leading developer of process technology, a major manufacturer of semiconductors, and the leading provider of silicon globally,” Gelsinger said.
Intel also said that it will act as a “foundry,” or a manufacturing partner, for other chip companies that focus on semiconductor design but need a company to actually make the chips. Intel said its foundry subsidiary will be called Intel Foundry Services and will be led by Randhir Thakur, a current Intel senior vice president.
Gelsinger said the foundry business will compete in a market potentially worth $100 billion by 2025 and will manufacture a range of chips, including chips based on ARM technology, which are used in mobile devices, and has historically competed with Intel’s favored x86 technology.
A slide displayed by Intel suggested that companies including Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Qualcomm could be customers for the business. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella appeared at Gelsinger’s talk in a show of support for Intel’s move.
Submitted March 23, 2021 at 07:58PM by Michael12390 https://ift.tt/3tJ9dPm
