from the “A-billion-here,-a-billion-there,-and-pretty-soon-you're-talking-real-money." dept.
Intel: Upcoming US Fab Will Be a Small City, to Cost $60 to $120 Billion
Intel has revealed some additional details about its upcoming brand-new fab complex in the U.S. Patrick Gelsinger, chief executive of Intel, said that the new fab campus will cost between $60 billion and $120 billion, will include multiple modules capable of processing wafers using Intel's advanced process technologies, and chip packaging facilities. In addition, the company aims to build it adjacent to a university to simplify the hiring of new personnel.
As part of its IDM 2.0 strategy, Intel is set to decide on the exact location of its next major semiconductor manufacturing hub in the U.S by the end of this year. The fab will include between six and eight modules that will produce chips using the company's leading-edge fabrication processes, will be able to package chips using Intel's proprietary techniques like EMIB and Foveros, and will also run a dedicated power plant, Pat Gelsinger said in an interview with the Washington Post.
Each semiconductor fabrication module will cost between $10 billion and $15 billion, so Intel's investments into the hub over the next decade could be as 'low' as $60 billion and could top $120 billion.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 08 2021, @10:19AM (2 children)
Guess who supplies the rare earth materials needed?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday August 08 2021, @10:53AM (1 child)
Say... what [wikipedia.org]?
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by TheMightyChickadee on Sunday August 08 2021, @10:48PM
I hear there is a nice site that has already had some development work done on it in Wisconsin. They should call Foxconn, they might let it go cheap!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Sunday August 08 2021, @11:01AM (5 children)
At this price they might as well build an University on their own, 't'll be a rounding error.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 08 2021, @05:21PM (3 children)
http://finance.caltech.edu/documents/18334/FS_19_20.pdf [caltech.edu]
Looks like CalTech costs about $33B a decade. So no, a University would not be a rounding error, it would be half their budget.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 08 2021, @05:50PM
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 08 2021, @09:12PM
Intel can just locate next to some community college, and help build that up into a leading technical school. If they do it right, they can get the state to pay for most of it.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday August 08 2021, @11:55PM
1. Building it != operating it.
2. CalTech is quite a profitable fresher factory on its own.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 09 2021, @12:35AM
Depends on how much they have to pay in bribes to get it accredited...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by deimtee on Sunday August 08 2021, @11:51AM (1 child)
In other words Intel is now accepting tax and subsidy bids from states that would like a chip fab.
200 million years is actually quite a long time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 08 2021, @05:55PM
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 08 2021, @11:58AM (12 children)
After 30+ years of offshore outsourcing, inshore immigration, executive cost cutting and looting, how many qualified employees are going to be available to man these US based fabs? Even at the senior levels?
Are we really expected to believe that Intel -- or any modern US corporation -- will invest in the training, education, salaries and good working conditions needed to keep enough experienced, talented engineers working there to produce a competitive chip? I doubt it. Far more likely the MBAs will fill the ranks with low cost, low quality workers from abroad, or outsource great bodies of work overseas, all to keep down the wages of those irritating knowledge workers until they decide to take up more lucrative careers in plumbing or the financial sector etc.
The US is not capable of sustaining scientific and technological know-how required to compete at the level of modern chip manufacturer. She is too busy finding ever more creative ways to squeeze the pips from every sectors into the maw of her useless Wall St. owners and their petty-mandarin classes. These fabs will fail, and should fail, until the US realises that its problems are not educational, or financial, or organizational; they are ideological.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday August 08 2021, @12:16PM
They plan to build it near a factory of freshers, they'll have lotsa them on a dime.
An MBA exec will (authoritatively) tell you you don't need them.
Oh, well, we still have AMD.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: -1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 08 2021, @12:34PM (5 children)
The US is too busy worrying about what fucking pronouns to use and what they identify as.
Agreed.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 08 2021, @06:00PM (4 children)
Seriously , what's the logic behind not extending the sme courtesy to them as they do to you, using YOUR preferred pronouns?
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday August 09 2021, @03:35AM (1 child)
When someone speaks to me, the pronoun typically used is "you".
If you refer to yourself in the third person, you should probably seek help.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 10 2021, @04:32AM
They did exactly as you said you would. I can only figure you were referring to the user of us as 3rd person, but it is referring to all the non-rightwingers.
Seriously, y'all are broken. Spend your life being angry and violent, or just grow the fuck up!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 09 2021, @06:11PM (1 child)
The difference (fucktard) is I'm not asking/telling anyone what pronouns to use when they refer to me. It's these Cultural Marxist degenerates that want to control and rewrite speech to fit their worldview.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 10 2021, @04:28AM
You are the one that got bent out of shape over another's persons use of pronouns. Truly you degens are the worst, and you got rather easily trolled.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Sunday August 08 2021, @12:50PM
Sounds like you should start by looking in a mirror. No actual ideological problem is mentioned above.
My take is that while Intel's project can fail, it's the sort of thing the US would need to sustain scientific and technological know-how - complex manufacture and research infrastructure mostly based in the US. Yet you're using that somehow as an example of how the US shouldn't be doing things? Shouldn't that much cognitive dissonance hurt?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday August 08 2021, @02:35PM (1 child)
I call bullshit. Just like I called bullshit when American steel workers claimed that no one in the world could produce steel of the quality they could produce. People, no matter where you find them, are capable.
You're not far wrong there. We have far too many navel gazers who produce nothing. Not to mention boatloads of MBAs who produce nothing, but that borders on organization and financial problems.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 08 2021, @08:59PM
I heard an explanation that the universities got overtaken by MBAs. So we have research that has to fund itself (over the short term) as well as generate long term profits, while handing all responsibility for quality, compliance - not to mention having the actual ideas - to the lowest guys on the rung. It's seriously 1-to-1 management to workers where I am.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 08 2021, @04:00PM (1 child)
> The US is not capable of sustaining scientific and technological know-how ...
Let me guess, parent AC is a Russia (or 2nd guess, China) shill. If we USA'ens keep believing this kind of negativity, sure enough we can make it come true! Or, you know, ignore the doubters and just get back to pulling in the same direction.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 08 2021, @09:01PM
You start pulling first then I'll see if I want to go in that direction.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 08 2021, @12:51PM (5 children)
They said "dedicated power plant,"
Now where would you really need that?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday August 08 2021, @02:28PM (2 children)
You might not *need* that anywhere and everywhere, but producing your own power is cost effective on an industrial scale. In fact, we are finding that it can be cost effective at the homeowner/consumer scale. And, if it's green power, you gain virtue points as a bonus. Wait for the 'Green Intel Inside' stickers.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 3, Informative) by mhajicek on Sunday August 08 2021, @03:47PM (1 child)
I think quality control of that power is more important for a large production facility. A brown out could be very expensive.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Informative) by HiThere on Sunday August 08 2021, @10:43PM
Even so, you better have backup plans, and test them. Yes, a well maintained power plant is pretty stable, but things happen.
Unfortunately, it's hard to test plan durability against tornadoes, earthquakes, forest fires, volcanoes, tidal waves, etc., but it's still important to do your best. (Anything that takes out the transmission lines is really hard on a backup plan.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by crafoo on Sunday August 08 2021, @03:32PM (1 child)
Anywhere a factory of this scale goes in. Water usage as well. A dedicated substation is almost certainly not enough anywhere inside the USA to power the complex they are talking about building.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 08 2021, @04:03PM
If Intel is seriously looking 10+ years ahead, my guess is they will strongly consider Great Lakes area due to lots of cheap water (and very little water-related politics to battle).
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Sunday August 08 2021, @05:14PM (6 children)
And I'll believe it when I see it.
Intel totally lost their edge, at least 0 years ago. They've been coasting. Building this complex will take...how long? At least years, if not 10,to the first chip?
Intel is basically done. Stick a fork in them. At best, they'll muddle along like IBM, too big to die, for a couple of decades.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Sunday August 08 2021, @05:14PM
...10 years ago
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Sunday August 08 2021, @05:34PM
https://www.anandtech.com/show/16842/intel-reports-q2-2021-earnings-client-computing-leads-the-way [anandtech.com]
They are far from done, just resting.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 08 2021, @06:09PM
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday August 08 2021, @07:15PM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 08 2021, @11:08PM
No. They offloaded the old one so they can build a new one. Amiright?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 09 2021, @07:34PM
If you're curious about why Intel lost their edge, this is one of the big reasons. In 2014, Intel announced a massive layoff. As it turns out, the majority of those who were laid off were older white men. They had to make room to bring in their ideal degenerate "diverse" mix.
https://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/2019/12/age-discrimination-intel-investigation-drags-on-for-years-highlighting-legal-pitfalls.html [oregonlive.com]
Having lost a large percentage of their highly experienced and highly competent engineers, it's no surprise that Intel designs and process technology lagged.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Sunday August 08 2021, @09:56PM
Intel also plans to spend $4E6 USD on an additional new complex, but more of a "Meh" one. Nevertheless, they expect a lot more feedback [exceptionnotfound.net] on it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 09 2021, @01:15PM
The chip manufacturing in the US moved offshore was the cost of labor.
First packaging, then wafer production, then process design, chip design was next on the wall street agenda when the plug was pulled.
Creating technology on command is a risky business. It remains to be seen if it will work. But not trying is a sure way to fail. Hopefully they have a base from which to do incremental improvement. Starting by making something you remember how to make using the new higher density factory at low density seems a good way to start.
At this point, finding a new generation of qualified workers is a real issue. You can grow them or steal them. Neither is quick.
Silicon processes like clean. Bunny suited humans are messy.
The undersea oil industry knows how to do things remotely.
Perhaps part of the path to reliable production is to keep as many humans off the floor as possible with a similar strategy?
If you could run a plant that way with humans running the manipulators, then it is an incremental step to a fully automatic plant.
(Might also permit hiring the best working in their pj's from home?)
Having fewer pesky humans could be a win win win for finding workers, clean process, and wall street.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 10 2021, @04:55AM
The best chip ever made is already out there. No need to make anymore. If you can't do the job with a 555, your just a EE watabe.