Wed, Nov 08, 2023 page12

• Intel building geographically balanced supply chain

  • By Lisa Wang / Staff Reporter
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  Intel Corp is expanding semiconductor capacity in the US, Europe and Asia as part of its efforts to satisfy the world’s need for a geographically balanced supply chain, while Taiwan has built itself into a foundry hub of Asia, CEO Pat Gelsinger told a media briefing in Taipei yesterday.

  As a major part of its IDM2.0 (integrated device manufacturing) strategy, Intel aims to become a leading foundry service supplier to the world, Gelsinger said.

  Taiwan has strong foundry companies, but Intel believes that “as the world wants a resilient geopolitical balanced supply chain, so our strategy is to align with that,” Gelsinger said. “Other than a strong Asian supply chain, with the hub built in Taiwan, there will be the need for a strong supply chain in America and Europe.”

  

  Intel Corp chief executive officer Patrick Gelsinger speaks during the Intel Innovation Taipei technology forum in Taipei yesterday. Intel last month predicted a return to sales growth in the fourth quarter, fueled by an improving personal computer market and a more competitive product line.

  Photo: Bloomberg

  To address such needs, the US chipmaker is building a diverse manufacturing network around the world with multiple manufacturing operations in the US, Europe and Asia, he said.

  In the US, Intel is building new fabs in Oregon, Arizona, New Mexico and Ohio, he said. The company also operates fabs in Israel and has unveiled major investment plans in Ireland, Poland and Germany to build leading-edge semiconductor factories, he said.

  In Asia, Intel is expanding its footprint in Malaysia and Vietnam. The chipmaker is deploying wafer-level assembly and chip packaging manufacturing capabilities in Malaysia, Gelsinger said.

  Intel’s investment in building geographically diversified fabs is well justified, as the global semiconductor market is expanding rapidly and is expected to reach an estimated US$1 trillion by the end of this decade from US$600 billion last year, he said.

  To become a reliant foundry service provider, Gelsinger said Intel has to be “customer-obsessed,” as it has to become customers’ factories.

  “No matter what, a good factory is making products that make their customers successful. Intel was never customer-oriented. We were a leadership technology provider,” Gelsinger said.

  Commenting on growing competition from computers powered by ARM-based chips, Gelsinger said ARM has been unable to gain a sizeable share of the world’s PC market. At the same time, a growing number of companies are ushering into artificial-intelligence-enabled PCs, and Intel expects shipments of AI PCs to rise to 100 million units in 2025, he said.

  Intel sees ARM-based chipmakers as potential customers of its foundry services, given that Intel’s OpenVINO, an open-source toolkit for optimizing and deploying AI inference, supports the ARM architecture, he said.

  Gelsinger also told Intel’s local partners in Taipei that the company is confident about reaching its goal of delivering five advanced process nodes in four years. After successfully shipping the first node, the Intel 7 processor, Intel is on schedule to ramp up production of the Intel 18A, the last node of the plan, in the second half of next year.

  Gelsinger took the reign of Intel in 2021.

  Showing support for Intel, Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) chairman Jonney Shih (施崇棠) yesterday demonstrated the generative AI features on PCs.
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