Intel gives up Magdeburg fab and raises the prospect of the end of the foundry
No modern Intel semiconductor plant will be built in Germany. 14A will be a critical process for the entire Intel Foundry.
(Image: c't)
It's been a long time coming, but now it's official: Intel is burying its plans for a German semiconductor plant to produce modern chips plus a processing plant in Poland. The construction plans have been on hold for a year. At the same time, Intel is putting the brakes on the expansion of its research and production plant in Ohio, USA. The company wants to close the processing plant in Costa Rica and distribute the capacities to the existing sites in Vietnam and Malaysia.
This was announced by Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan at the analyst conference on the announcement of the latest business figures. At the same time, Lip-Bu Tan wants to further streamline Intel. Of the 96,400 employees counted at the end of June, only around 75,000 are to remain by the end of the year. Intel already laid off thousands of employees in July, including many engineers from its own semiconductor plants and CPU developers.
It's down to the wire for the Intel Foundry
In a statement to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Intel paints a bleak picture if its own chip manufacturing division, Intel Foundry, does not achieve great success soon. According to this, the 14A process generation for 2027 is the last chance to turn the tide. The manufacturer has already admitted that 18A is not the hoped-for success in customer acquisition.
"If we are not able to secure a significant external customer and achieve key customer milestones for Intel 14A, there is a risk that the development and manufacture of Intel 14A and the follow-on leading-edge processes will not be commercially viable. In such a case, we could interrupt or discontinue our efforts on Intel 14A and the successor processes as well as various projects to expand our production," explains the Group.
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In other words: If 14A is not a commercial success, Intel will probably stop research and development of new manufacturing processes. Previous manufacturing processes would then continue to run until at least 2030. However, Intel would be dependent on external chip contract manufacturers such as TSMC for processors and other products. In the long term, this would be the de facto end of the Intel Foundry – the design and manufacturing divisions could separate from each other in such a case.
Updated headline.
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