The chip giant continues to look for options to expand its semiconductor manufacturing capacity in Europe. Intel is willing to invest some 80,000 million euros over the next ten years, a figure that will also go to the creation of new factories in the United States, as we already told you in this news. Part of these new factories will focus on research and production of chips in the Intel 3 and 20A nodes.
For now, Intel is still working on improve the success rate per wafer of your Intel 7 node which, as some of our readers may know, has been used in Alder Lake-S processors. However, we must not fall into the mistake of thinking that, due to the number present in its nomenclature, it is a 7nm process. Said node actually uses the 10nm process, but it represents a significant improvement over the SuperFin design we saw in the previous generation (Tiger Lake).
The next leap for the chip giant will be given by the Intel 4 node (7nm), which should be ready sometime this year, although we don’t have a specific date yet. Intel’s next leaps will focus on improving that manufacturing process, with the next process reduction taking us to 5nm.
The new nomenclature used by Intel has an explanation, and that is that those nodes of the Santa Clara giant achieve a higher density of transistors than the one with lower TSMC nodes. If you still have doubts about this topic, I invite you to review this article, where we explain it quite clearly.
Returning to the subject of Intel’s new semiconductor factories, there is no doubt that their arrival in Europe would be a very positive thing for the continent, and for two main reasons. The first is that would create jobsand the second is that it would help respond to the growing needs of chips from the old continent. According to a recent study, the demand for state-of-the-art semiconductors will increase, in Europe, by up to 43% in 2030. We will see how this project evolves, and which country ends up being chosen to build the first Intel plant.
Before concluding, I remind you of some very important and very interesting words from Pat Gelsinger, CEO of Intel:
“By 2030, 20% of the world’s microchip production should come from Europe. Keep in mind that world production will double. This implies quadruple current European production. No time to lose”.
