Construct two new fabs and establish a foundry business unit
Secure business flexibility by increasing foundry outsourcing and provision
Development of 7nm-based CPU begins with a target release date of 2023


Intel is embarking on a full-scale foundry business by building two new fabs.

Intel's new CEO, Pat Gelsinger, made this statement while announcing the 'IDM 2.0' model at the ' Intel Unleashed: Engineering the Future' event, held online in the early hours of the 24th (our time).

CEO Gelsinger said, “Intel is the only company with software, semiconductors and platforms, packaging, and manufacturing processes,” adding, “Through the IDM 2.0 model, we will design and deliver the best products in the best way in all competitive fields.”

Under the IDM 2.0 model, Intel plans to continue producing most of its products in-house. CEO Gelsinger stated, “Development of a 7nm-based process using extreme ultraviolet (EUV) technology is underway,” adding, “In the second quarter of this year, compute tiles for the 7nm-based CPU, Meteor Lake, will enter the tape-in phase and are scheduled to be released around 2023.”

At the same time, it announced that it would expand the use of external foundries, such as TSMC, across its entire portfolio to ensure delay-free production. In addition, it plans to develop System-on-package products beyond System-on-chip.

CEO Gelsinger stated, “Even conservatively, the foundry market will grow to $100 billion (approximately 130 trillion won) by 2025,” and announced that “to respond to this, we have decided to invest $20 billion (approximately 23 trillion won) to build two new fabs in Arizona, USA.”

Along with fab expansion, Intel established the Intel Foundry Service (IFS) business unit to firmly position itself as a foundry provider. Targeting the U.S. and Europe as key markets, the new business unit plans to produce a wide variety of semiconductors regardless of architecture, including not only x86 but also Arm and RISC-V.

CEO Gelsinger emphasized that AWS, Cisco, Ericsson, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Qualcomm, the U.S. Department of Commerce, the Semiconductor Industry Association, Applied Materials, ASML, Cadence, IMEC, Lam Research, Si5, Synopsys, and Tokyo Electron are currently supporting the company's IFS plan. He also stated that specific business plans would be announced within the year.

Meanwhile, Intel has decided to collaborate with IBM to develop next-generation logic and packaging technologies.