Sunday, April 02, 2006
Intel plans 5 football fields fab
Intel plans 5 football fields fab. And would will do the rest of the manufacturers?
Chief financial officer recently outlined projections which put the cost of chip factories at about $5 billion in the not too distant future. Quickly rising costs will limit the amount of manufacturers being able to actually engage in such projects and are likely force the bulk of the industry into production joint-ventures.
Yep, 300K sqft clean room fab of next generation will cost some $5B. Probably 32nm one in the year 2009/10. Paradoxically, if so that Intel's fab under code name DC 1E should ground brake soon at
Intel Oregon Ronler Acres camp. It should make first 32nm SRAMs in 2007/8. But, if it will cost $5B and new
45nm fab in Israel $3B (Israel's Governemnt will invest some $500M) that should be some hefty $8B of production investments in the next two years. Add a few billions of investments in sinking (but noth singing) Itanium, and that is $10B+ in the next 2 years. What about develeopment costs for next generation chips, or Intel thinks that it solved all competition problems with Merom, Conroe, Woodcrest and Itanium? Hardly, I would say. Do Intel investors know for ROI ( Return of Investments?).
In January 2002 things seemed like this:
Intel Corporation is accelerating construction of its D1D fab at Ronler Acres. The overall 778,000 square footprint area chip-manufacturing plant will cost $2 billion fully equipped. The three-story building will have 175,000 square feet of clean-room area. The manufacturing plant is scheduled for completion fall of 2002 and occupied spring 2003.
Thus, D1D fab (recently manufactured first 45nm SRAMs) has clean room foot of some 58K
sqfts or some 6K square meters. Yes, its footprint is close to the size of footbal field and it is easily recognisable even from space!. Intel's gargantuan 45nm fab seen from space remainds me to a die seen from factory ceiling!
Let me conclude: 32nm fab thus should be probably even double in size of that: 350K square feets ! Its footprint area times three-story and we get more than five footbal fields of clean room space.Here is a sattelite shot of Intel's latest D1D fab at Ronler Acres Campus. Elongated, angled building.
This post link
THIS LINK posted by Joseph Bell : 11:27 PM
