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Some have more than 50 billion tiny transistors, 10,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair. It was made on huge, ultra-clean factory room floors that could be seven stories high and four football fields long.
Microchips are in many ways the lifeblood of the modern economy. They power computers, smartphones, cars, appliances, and other electronic devices. However, the world’s demand for them has increased since the pandemic, which has also caused supply chain disruptions and caused a global famine.
This fuels inflation and raises alarms that the US is becoming too dependent on chips produced abroad. The United States accounts for only 12 percent of global semiconductor manufacturing capacity; More than 90 percent of the most advanced chips come from Taiwan.
Silicon Valley giant Intel, which has been trying to reclaim its long-time leadership in chip manufacturing technology, is making a $20 billion bet that it can help alleviate the chip shortage. Chandler is building two factories at its chip manufacturing complex in Arizona, which will take three years to complete, and has recently announced plans for a potentially larger expansion with new facilities in New Albany, Ohio and Magdeburg, Germany.
Why does making millions of these tiny components mean building and spending so much? A look at the Intel manufacturing facilities in Ore., Chandler, and Hillsboro provides some answers.
What are chips good for?
Chips or integrated circuits began to replace bulky individual transistors in the late 1950s. Many of these small components are manufactured on a piece of silicon and bonded to work together. The resulting chips store data, amplify radio signals, and perform other operations; Intel is famous for a variety of products called microprocessors that perform most of the computing functions of a computer.
Intel has managed to shrink the transistors in its microprocessors to unimaginable sizes. But rival Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company can manufacture even smaller components, a key reason Apple chose to make the chips for its newest iPhones.
Such acquisitions by a company based in Taiwan, an island China claims to belong to, raise signs of a growing technology vacuum that could put advances in computing, consumer devices and military hardware at risk, both from China’s ambitions and inherent threats in Taiwan. such as earthquakes and droughts. And it shed light on Intel’s efforts to recapture technology leadership.
how to make chips
Chipmakers are putting more and more transistors in each piece of silicon, so the technology is doing more each year. This is why new chip factories cost billions of dollars and fewer companies can afford to build them.
In addition to paying for buildings and machinery, companies must spend heavily on developing the complex machining steps used to produce chips from plate-size silicon wafers – which is why factories are called “factories”.
Enormous machines design designs for the chips on each wafer and then deposit and erode layers of material to create their transistors and connect them. Up to 25 wafers at a time move between these systems in special compartments on automated top rails.
Processing a wafer takes thousands of steps and up to two months. In recent years, TSMC has set the pace for production by operating “gigafab” facilities with four or more production lines. Dan Hutcheson, vice president of market research firm TechInsights, estimates that each site can process more than 100,000 wafers per month. He puts the capacity of Intel’s two planned $10 billion facility in Arizona at around 40,000 wafers per month each.
How to pack chips
After processing, the wafer is sliced into separate chips. These are tested and wrapped in plastic wrap for connecting to circuit boards or parts of a system.
This step has become a new battleground because it’s harder to make transistors even smaller. Companies now stack multiple chips or stack them side by side in a package, combining them to act as a single piece of silicon.
Where it is now routine to bundle a handful of chips together, Intel has developed an advanced product that uses new technology to assemble a remarkable 47 individual chips, including some made by TSMC and other companies and those manufactured at Intel factories.
What makes chip factories different?
Intel chips typically sell for hundreds to thousands of dollars each. Intel released its fastest microprocessor for desktop computers in March, for example, starting at $739. A piece of dust that the human eye cannot see can destroy a person. As such, factories must be cleaner than a hospital operating room and require sophisticated systems to filter the air and regulate temperature and humidity.
Fabs must also withstand almost any type of vibration that can cause expensive equipment to fail. Thus, magnificent clean rooms are built on huge concrete slabs on special shock absorbers.
Also critical is the ability to move huge volumes of liquids and gases. At about 70 feet high, the top level of Intel factories are equipped with huge fans to help circulate air directly into the clean room below. Beneath the clean room are thousands of pumps, transformers, power cabinets, utility pipes and chillers that connect to production machines.
water needs
Fabs are water-intensive processes. This is because water is needed to clean the wafers at many stages of the manufacturing process.
Intel’s two sites in Chandler collectively draw approximately 11 million gallons a day from local utilities. Intel’s future expansion will require much more, which is ostensibly a challenge for a drought-stricken state like Arizona, which has cut off its water supply to farmers. But farming actually consumes much more water than a chip plant.
Intel says the Chandler sites, which rely on sources from three rivers and a well system, recover about 82 percent of the fresh water they use through filtration systems, sedimentation ponds and other equipment. This water is returned to the city, which operates Intel-funded treatment plants and redistributes it for irrigation and other non-potable uses.
By working with environmental groups and others on water conservation and recovery projects for local communities, Intel hopes to help increase water supplies in Arizona and other states by 2030.
How are Fabs created?
To build its future factories, Intel will need roughly 5,000 skilled construction workers over three years.
They have a lot to do. Digging the foundations is expected to remove 890,000 cubic meters of dirt transported at a dump truck speed per minute, said Dan Doron, Intel’s chief construction officer.
The company expects to pour more than 445,000 cubic meters of concrete and use 100,000 tons of reinforcing steel for the foundations – more than the construction of the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, in Dubai.
Mr. Doron said some of the cranes for the construction were so big that more than 100 trucks were needed to put the parts together. The cranes will, among other things, lift 55 tons of coolers for new factories.
Patrick Gelsinger, who became CEO of Intel a year ago, is lobbying Congress to provide spectacular construction grants and tax credits for equipment investment. To manage Intel’s spending risk, it plans to highlight making spectacular “bullets” that can be equipped with equipment to respond to market changes.
Mr. Gelsinger will have to succeed in his plan to manufacture chips designed by other companies to fill the chip shortage. But a single company can only do so much; Products such as phones and cars require components from many suppliers as well as legacy chips. And no country can stand alone in semiconductors either. While increasing domestic production may slightly reduce procurement risks, the chip industry will continue to rely on a complex global network of companies for raw materials, manufacturing equipment, design software, talent and custom manufacturing.
produced by Alana Celli
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