• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

Intel and UMC Announce New Foundry Collaboration

btarunr

Editor & Senior Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Oct 9, 2007
Messages
47,297 (7.53/day)
Location
Hyderabad, India
System Name RBMK-1000
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 5700G
Motherboard ASUS ROG Strix B450-E Gaming
Cooling DeepCool Gammax L240 V2
Memory 2x 8GB G.Skill Sniper X
Video Card(s) Palit GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER GameRock
Storage Western Digital Black NVMe 512GB
Display(s) BenQ 1440p 60 Hz 27-inch
Case Corsair Carbide 100R
Audio Device(s) ASUS SupremeFX S1220A
Power Supply Cooler Master MWE Gold 650W
Mouse ASUS ROG Strix Impact
Keyboard Gamdias Hermes E2
Software Windows 11 Pro
Intel Corp. and United Microelectronics Corporation ("UMC"), a leading global semiconductor foundry, today announced that they will collaborate on the development of a 12-nanometer semiconductor process platform to address high-growth markets such as mobile, communication infrastructure and networking. The long-term agreement brings together Intel's at-scale U.S. manufacturing capacity and UMC's extensive foundry experience on mature nodes to enable an expanded process portfolio. It also offers global customers greater choice in their sourcing decisions with access to a more geographically diversified and resilient supply chain.

"Taiwan has been a critical part of the Asian and global semiconductor and broader technology ecosystem for decades, and Intel is committed to collaborating with innovative companies in Taiwan, such as UMC, to help better serve global customers," said Stuart Pann, Intel senior vice president and general manager of Intel Foundry Services (IFS). "Intel's strategic collaboration with UMC further demonstrates our commitment to delivering technology and manufacturing innovation across the global semiconductor supply chain and is another important step toward our goal of becoming the world's second-largest foundry by 2030."



Jason Wang, UMC co-president, said, "Our collaboration with Intel on a U.S.-manufactured 12 nm process with FinFET capabilities is a step forward in advancing our strategy of pursuing cost-efficient capacity expansion and technology node advancement in continuing our commitment to customers. This effort will enable our customers to smoothly migrate to this critical new node, and also benefit from the resiliency of an added Western footprint. We are excited for this strategic collaboration with Intel, which broadens our addressable market and significantly accelerates our development roadmap leveraging the complementary strengths of both companies."

The 12 nm node will utilize Intel's U.S. based high-volume manufacturing capacity and experience in FinFET transistor design, offering a strong combination of maturity, performance and power efficiency. The production will markedly benefit from UMC's decades of process leadership and history of providing customers with Process Design Kit (PDK) and design assistance for effectively providing foundry services. The new process node will be developed and manufactured in Fabs 12, 22 and 32 at Intel's Ocotillo Technology Fabrication site in Arizona. Leveraging existing equipment in these fabs will significantly reduce upfront investment requirements and optimize utilization.

The two companies will work to satisfy customer demand and cooperate on design enablement to support the 12 nm process by enabling electronic design automation and intellectual properties solutions from ecosystem partners. Production of the 12 nm process is expected to begin in 2027.

Intel has been investing and innovating in the U.S. and globally for more than 55 years, with established or planned manufacturing sites and investments in Oregon, Arizona, New Mexico and Ohio, in addition to Ireland, Germany, Poland, Israel and Malaysia. IFS has made significant progress over the past year, building strong momentum with new customers, including new customers across the Intel 16, Intel 3 and Intel 18A process technologies, and expanding its growing foundry ecosystem. IFS expects to continue its progress this year.

UMC has a more than 40-year history of being a preferred supplier of foundry services to critical applications including automotive, industrial, display and communications. Over the past two decades, UMC has successfully expanded its base across Asia and has continued to lead innovation across mature nodes and specialty foundry services. UMC is a significant supplier to the top 400+ semiconductor customers and has extensive expertise and know-how in supporting customers to reach high yields while maintaining industry-leading foundry utilization.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site
 

TheLostSwede

News Editor
Joined
Nov 11, 2004
Messages
17,769 (2.42/day)
Location
Sweden
System Name Overlord Mk MLI
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
Motherboard Gigabyte X670E Aorus Master
Cooling Noctua NH-D15 SE with offsets
Memory 32GB Team T-Create Expert DDR5 6000 MHz @ CL30-34-34-68
Video Card(s) Gainward GeForce RTX 4080 Phantom GS
Storage 1TB Solidigm P44 Pro, 2 TB Corsair MP600 Pro, 2TB Kingston KC3000
Display(s) Acer XV272K LVbmiipruzx 4K@160Hz
Case Fractal Design Torrent Compact
Audio Device(s) Corsair Virtuoso SE
Power Supply be quiet! Pure Power 12 M 850 W
Mouse Logitech G502 Lightspeed
Keyboard Corsair K70 Max
Software Windows 10 Pro
Benchmark Scores https://valid.x86.fr/yfsd9w
That was unexpected. Curious if this has something to do with Intel being unable to acquire Tower Semi.
 
Joined
May 7, 2020
Messages
145 (0.09/day)
With this being a new process node, does 12nm stand for 22nm or something else?
According to wikipedia those fabs are already equipped for 22, 14 and 10nm. Is designing a new process worth the r&d and time as opposed to just buy intels 14++++nm and 10nm wafers?
 
Joined
Oct 14, 2022
Messages
8 (0.01/day)
Processor 5800X3D
Motherboard ASUS B550
Cooling NH-D15
Memory 128GB 3200 MT/s
Video Card(s) 7900XT
That was unexpected. Curious if this has something to do with Intel being unable to acquire Tower Semi.
Not likely, Tower Semiconductor doesn't make nodes smaller than 45nm, this is more for getting a 14nm class node that works for general consumers. Intel's 14nm is WAY to custom to work for anything other than their CPUs

With this being a new process node, does 12nm stand for 22nm or something else?
According to wikipedia those fabs are already equipped for 22, 14 and 10nm. Is designing a new process worth the r&d and time as opposed to just buy intels 14++++nm and 10nm wafers?
Intel's 14nm is not suitable for ANY company outside of Intel's internal CPUs
 
Joined
Jun 29, 2018
Messages
542 (0.23/day)
Not likely, Tower Semiconductor doesn't make nodes smaller than 45nm, this is more for getting a 14nm class node that works for general consumers. Intel's 14nm is WAY to custom to work for anything other than their CPUs


Intel's 14nm is not suitable for ANY company outside of Intel's internal CPUs
Altera used that process, even before the acquisition.
 
Top