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Intel and UMC on Thursday said they had entered into an agreement to jointly to develop a 12 nm photolithography process for high-growth markets such as mobile, communication infrastructure, and networking. Under the terms of the deal, the two companies will co-design a 12 nm-class foundry node that Intel Foundry Services (IFS) will use at its fabs in Arizona to produce a variety of chips.
The new 12 nm manufacturing process will be developed in Arizona and used in Fabs 12, 22, and 32 at Intel’s Ocotillo Technology Fabrication site in Arizona. The two companies will jointly work on the fabrication technology itself, process design kit (PDK), electronic design automation (EDA) tools, and intellectual properties (IP) solutions from ecosystem partners to enable quick deployment of the node by customers once the tech is production ready in 2027.
Intel’s Fabs 12, 22, and 32 in Arizona are currently capable of making chips on Intel’s 7nm-class, 10 nm, 14 nm, and 22 nm manufacturing processes. So as Intel rolls out its Intel 4, Intel 3, and Intel 20A/18A production at other sites and winds down production of Intel 7-based products, these Arizona fabs will be freed to produce chips on a variety of legacy and low-cost nodes, including the 12 nm fabrication process co-developed by UMC and Intel.
While Intel itself has a variety of highly-customized process technologies for internal use to produce its own CPUs and similar products, its IFS division essentially has only three: Intel 16 for cost-conscientious customers designing inexpensive low-power products (including those with RF support), Intel 3 for those who develop high-performance solutions yet want to stick to familiar FinFET transistors, and Intel 18A aimed at developers seeking for no-compromise performance and transistor density enabled by gate-all-around RibbonFET transistors and PowerVia backside power delivery.
