IFS

Intel and Tower Announce Foundry Agreement

Posted on by Techtime

Photo above: Intel’s Fab 11X in Rio Rancho, New Mexico. Credit: Intel Inc.

Less than a month after the termination of a planned merger between Intel and Tower Seniconductor, the two companies announced a largescale production agreement: Intel will provide foundry services and 300mm manufacturing capacity to help Tower serve its customers globally. Tower will utilize Intel’s manufacturing facility in Rio Rancho, New Mexico (Fab 11X), and will invest up to $300 million to acquire and own equipment and other fixed assets to be installed in the facility.

The rearranement of the fab will provide production capacity of over 600,000 photo layers per month. Intel will manufacture Tower’s 65-nanometer power management BCD (bipolar-CMOS-DMOS) and radio frequency silicon on insulator (RF SOI) solutions flows. Stuart Pann, Intel senior vice president and general manager of Intel Foundry Services (IFS) explained during Goldman Sachs Communacopia & Technology Conference this week, that intel had unused capacity in Fab 11X, because it is an older factory for older technologies.

Initial Production in 2025

Pann: “We found a way to do contract manufacturing to take advantage of that extra space. Those older tools that we aren’t using, taking some investment from Tower to finish out the line.” The parties plan to achieve full process flow qualification in 2024, and to begin with full mass production in 2025. Tower CEO Russell Ellwanger said: “We see this collaboration as a first step towards multiple unique synergistic solutions with Intel.”

Tower provides foundry services for Analog semicinductor devices. It offers a broad range of customizable process platforms such as SiGe, BiCMOS, mixed-signal/CMOS, RF CMOS, CMOS image sensor, non-imaging sensors, integrated power management (BCD and 700V), and MEMS. Tower owns two manufacturing facilities in Israel (150mm and 200mm), two in the U.S. (200mm), two facilities in Japan (200mm and 300mm) which it owns through its 51% holdings in TPSCo and is sharing with ST a 300mm manufacturing facility in Italy .