Intel’s Fab 52 – New production facility for the 18A process in Arizona

With the completion of Fab 52 in Chandler, Arizona, Intel is expanding its manufacturing capacity with a site designed exclusively for the new 18A technology. The plant is part of a long-term investment strategy with which Intel intends to increase the proportion of modern chip production in the United States. After Fab 42 and Fab 62, Fab 52 is the most extensive expansion of the Ocotillo complex in the south of the Price Road Corridor to date. Intel has made some information available to us in advance under embargo and we will now be able to report on the colleagues who were on site at the same time. And so in this article, I will first deal with the fab itself.

Background and site development

Intel began its first manufacturing activities in Arizona in 1979 and has since invested over 50 billion US dollars in the site. Several factories have been built in Chandler over the years, including Fab 12 and 22 in the 1990s and Fab 32 in the early 2000s. Fab 42 was originally started in 2011, but was not completed until 2017 with a seven billion US dollar investment. The newer Fabs 52 and 62 were announced as part of a further expansion phase with a total volume of around 32 billion US dollars.

The site covers around one square mile and was built in the early 1990s on 700 acres of former agricultural land. Today, it is considered one of the largest contiguous high-tech sites in the US semiconductor market.

Construction of Fab 52 began at the end of 2021 and took several years. Over one million cubic meters of earth and rock were moved for the foundation work, around 600,000 cubic meters of concrete were used and around 75,000 tons of steel were used. This is roughly double the amount of steel used in the Burj Khalifa. The actual supporting structure consists of a further 35,000 tons of steel. The internal piping and supply systems add up to a total length of around 9 million meters.

A modern production site of this size typically takes three to five years to build and requires several thousand specialized workers. Fab 52 is to be integrated into the existing supply and infrastructure network of the Ocotillo site, which already includes energy supply, chemical treatment and ultrapure water facilities.

Technological classification of the 18A process

The 18A process is a further development of the previous Intel 3 technology and introduces two fundamental innovations: RibbonFET transistors and PowerVia power supply. RibbonFET is Intel’s variant of a gate-all-around transistor, where the channel is completely enclosed by the gate. This architecture improves the control of the current flow and enables a more stable switching characteristic in smaller structures. PowerVia moves the power supply to the back of the wafer, separating the signal and supply planes. This reduces the electrical resistance between the package and transistor and reduces the space required for the front wiring levels.

According to internal data, the 18A process achieves around 25 percent lower power consumption at the same clock frequency and an area efficiency increase of around 30 percent compared to Intel 3. For high-performance and data center products, this means more transistors per chip with the same power dissipation. The 18A process is set to go into series production in Fab 52 from the end of 2025. Intel says that the yield should match or exceed the best values of the last 15 years. Production is designed for wafers with a diameter of 300 millimeters and integrates EUV exposure in the lower metal layers (M0-M2). This eliminates some of the previous multiple exposures, which reduces process costs.

Packaging technologies and integration

Fab 52 will be integrated into the company’s vertically integrated production chain. In the next step, wafers from 18A production can be combined with Foveros 3D stacking or EMIB interconnection technology. Both processes enable the connection of several chiplets within one package. Foveros Direct, a variant with hybrid bonding, achieves connection distances of less than 10 micrometers and over 10,000 connections per square millimeter. EMIB 2.5D, on the other hand, uses silicon bridges to interconnect several large dies next to each other.

Fab 52 is therefore not only a location for classic monoliths, but also for disaggregated chip systems, which can consist of different process nodes and functional units. This applies to Intel’s own products as well as potential contract manufacturing as part of the foundry business.

Water management and sustainability

The production facilities in Arizona are located in a region with limited water resources, which is why water treatment is an integral part of the site concept. Together with the city of Chandler, Intel operates the Ocotillo Brine Reduction Facility (OBRF), a 12-acre plant for the desalination and recycling of process water. Up to nine million gallons of water can be treated and returned to the production cycle there every day.

Intel describes itself as water-positive in Arizona, which means that more water is returned to the local water cycle than is withdrawn. According to the company, around 1.1 billion gallons were restored via regional projects in 2023. However, this information cannot be independently verified as precise measurement methods and external test reports have not yet been published.

Evaluation and classification

Fab 52 represents an attempt to re-establish the production of complex semiconductor technologies in the USA. The plant is primarily of strategic importance: it is intended to reduce technological dependencies and create production capacities for future high-end processes. In technological terms, the move to 18A is a further development, but not a radical reorientation. Gate-all-around transistors and backside power delivery are also being pursued by other manufacturers, such as TSMC and Samsung. The difference lies in the details of implementation, particularly in process stability and integration into existing production lines.

Whether Intel can achieve the hoped-for equivalence or superiority over TSMC N2 or Samsung GAA with 18A remains to be seen. Only after the first series productions and comparative measurements will it become clear whether the theoretical efficiency gains will hold up in practice. Regardless of this, Fab 52 is a significant expansion of American production capacities and a step towards a more geographically diversified semiconductor production. The site combines technological development with an elaborate infrastructure and sustainability concept, which should support the security of supply and competitiveness of the US semiconductor industry in the long term.