Intel Prepares Oregon D1X Chip Plant for High-NA EUV
Intel has opened the new ‘module’ of its D1X chip factory in Oregon where the company develops and produces its future nodes, among other things. This Mod 3 expansion includes a new cleanroom, which will eventually house High-NA-EUV machines.
Intel tells in a closed meeting with journalists that the D1X Mod 3 extensions are good for 25,000 square meters of extra cleanroom capacity. The company says the expansions cost more than $3 billion, although it also says it will invest more in the new expansion in the future.
The D1X factory is located on the former Ronler Acres campus, which was renamed Gordon Moore Park by the manufacturer on Monday. The company does almost all development work for future processes there and also takes on part of the mass production with such nodes. The company also manufactures the lithography masks for chip production and does other R&D work there. The campus opened in April 1997 and now occupies 182 acres on an industrial estate west of Portland.
Intel confirms to reporters that the D1X Mod 3 facility will be used, among other things, to develop its current public roadmap, such as the Intel 4 process planned for this year, which will see the company embark on euV lithography for the first time. Bet. D1X will also do development work for nodes such as Intel 20A, which will adopt gate-all-around transistors and PowerVia for power delivery for the first time, and Intel 18A, whose production start was recently brought forward to the second half of 2024. The new cleanroom will also Work is underway on future nodes that are not yet on the public roadmap, the company says.
In addition, for the first time, the manufacturer is sharing details about an internal test node that it will develop in D1X. According to the company, that node will be Intel 4- or Intel 3-like with more traditional finfet transistors, but with PowerVia. Intel tells journalists that the node is not being used commercially, but is only intended to collect data about the PowerVia before this power supply technique is used in combination with a new transistor type in Intel 20A.
The manufacturer tells reporters that D1X will remain the company’s flagship chip factory even as it has announced advanced chip factories in Germany and Ohio. “Oregon will always be the leading edge, the place where we do the development of the next node. We will ramp up production here with new nodes first and then transfer them to other sites.”
In addition, Intel says that ASML’s first High-NA-euv machines will be installed in D1X Mod 3. The company previously confirmed that it has reserved the first High-NA machine at ASML. Intel tells reporters it hopes to deploy High-NA for the first time around 2025. The company does say that it has built contingency plans into its roadmap, so that new processes could possibly also be produced without High-NA if the EUV technique is delayed at ASML.