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Intel produces the first processors using so-called Intel 4 manufacturing technology in large series (High-Volume Manufacturing, HVM). To this end, the manufacturer has upgraded the Fab 34 in Leixlip, Ireland, which is currently the only location in the world to produce with Intel 4 structures and high capacity. The first thing that will be created there are compute tiles for the mobile processors from the Meteor Lake series, also known as Cora Ultra.
However, this also means that large quantities are not expected before the beginning of 2024: a silicon wafer takes several months to produce a finished chip, for example for numerous exposure and etching steps. In addition, the chips have to travel around the world several times because Intel does not yet have a packaging plant in Europe that puts the semiconductor components on a carrier.
In the case of Meteor Lake, the packaging is complex because a processor consists of several chiplets or tiles. Some of these come from chip contract manufacturer TSMC, some come from other Intel factories with older manufacturing technology. Intel’s first European packaging plant will be built in Poland.
The announcement about large-scale production explains why the CPU presentation is unexpectedly late on December 14, 2023. We expect the first flood of Meteor Lake notebooks at the CES technology trade fair in early January 2024.
Intel’s semiconductor factory in Leixlip, Ireland.
(Image: Intel)
Pioneer Fab D1X
The compute tiles for pre-production processors were primarily created in Intel’s US research semiconductor factory D1X, which is located in Oregon. For the first time, Intel is using extreme ultraviolet (EUV) manufacturing technology there. Models from Oregon went to notebook manufacturers so that they could design and certify their devices. Early sales copies could theoretically also use chips from the D1X fab.
In the future, processors with the improved Intel 3 variant will also be produced in Ireland, although they will only be available for servers – initially the 288-core Sierra Forest, then the HPC CPU Granite Rapids. For desktop PCs and notebooks, Intel is jumping directly from Intel 4 to the new 20A/18A generation.
(mma)