Intel yesterday opened its Fab 9 advanced chip factory, pictured here, in Rio Rancho, NM, part of Intel’s previously announced $3.5 billion investment in its New Mexico operations for manufacturing advanced semiconductor packaging technologies. This includes Intel’s 3D packaging technology, Foveros, capable of combining multiple chips, according to the company.
The Fab 9 and Fab 11x facilities in Rio Rancho are Intel’s first co-located high-volume advanced packaging site, “marking an end-to-end manufacturing process that creates a more efficient supply chain from demand to final product,” the company said.
Foveros 3D packaging technology is, according to Intel, a first-of-its-kind solution that enables the building of processors with compute tiles stacked vertically, rather than side-by-side. It also allows Intel and foundry customers to mix and match compute tiles to optimize cost and power efficiency.
Intel said Fab 9 will help fuel the next era of Intel’s advanced packaging technologies. “As the semiconductor industry moves into the heterogeneous era that uses multiple’chiplets’ in a package, advanced packaging technologies, such as Foveros and EMIB (embedded multi-die interconnect bridge), offer a faster and more cost-efficient path toward achieving 1 trillion transistors on a chip and extending Moore’s Law beyond 2030.”
The $3.5 billion investment in Rio Rancho has created hundreds of high tech jobs and more than 3,000 construction jobs, along with an additional 3,500 jobs across the state, according to Intel.
“Today, we celebrate the opening of Intel’s first high-volume semiconductor operations and the only U.S. factory producing the world’s most advanced packaging solutions at scale,” said Keyvan Esfarjani, Intel executive vice president and chief global operations officer. “This cutting-edge technology sets Intel apart and gives our customers real advantages in performance, form factor and flexibility in design applications, all within a resilient supply chain.”
