A Glimpse Inside Intel

March 21, 2023

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger gave an optimistic account of U.S. semiconductor manufacturing on Friday, telling an MIT audience that the ongoing expansion of his firm’s production capacity would bolster the company over the long term while giving the U.S. more economic and industrial security.

“Everything digital runs on semiconductors,” Gelsinger said. “There is no digital without semiconductors today.”

In 1990, he noted, 80 percent of the world’s semiconductors were built in the U.S. and Europe, whereas today, 80 percent are built in Asia. To spread manufacturing around more evenly, Intel is adding production in two huge fabrication plants, or “fabs,” one in Arizona and one still being built in Ohio.

“We want balanced, resilient supply chains right across the world, and that’s what we’re out to accomplish with the CHIPS Act, and what Intel is driving [at] quite aggressively,” Gelsinger said, speaking before a capacity crowd in MIT’s Wong Auditorium. “Let’s build the fabs where we want them.”

The relative lack of chip manufacturing capacity in the U.S., he added, “became acutely visible as we went through the Covid crisis.”

Complete article from MIT News.