Tower Semiconductor has agreed to will utilize Intel Foundry Service’s advanced manufacturing facility in New Mexico.
Under an agreement announced by the firms, Tower will invest up to $300 million to acquire and own equipment and other fixed assets to be installed in the New Mexico facility, providing a new capacity corridor of over 600,000 photo layers per month for Tower’s future growth, enabling capacity to support forecasted customer demand for 300mm advanced analog processing.
Intel will manufacture Tower’s highly differentiated 65-nanometer power management BCD (bipolar-CMOS-DMOS) flows, among other flows at Intel’s Fab 11X in Rio Rancho, New Mexico.
Stuart Pann, Intel senior vice president and general manager of Intel Foundry Services, said, “We launched Intel Foundry Services with a long-term view of delivering the world’s first open system foundry that brings together a secure, sustainable, and resilient supply chain with the best of Intel and our ecosystem. We’re thrilled that Tower sees the unique value we provide and chose us to open their 300mm U.S. capacity corridor.”
Tower CEO Russell Ellwanger said, “We are excited to continue working with Intel. As we look to the future, our primary focus is to expand our customer partnerships through high-scale manufacturing of leading-edge technology solutions. This collaboration with Intel allows us to fulfill our customers’ demand roadmaps, with a particular focus on advanced power management and radio frequency silicon on insulator (RF SOI) solutions, with full process flow qualification planned in 2024. We see this as a first step towards multiple unique synergistic solutions with Intel.”
Intel previously announced a $3.5 billion investment to expand operations in New Mexico and equip its Rio Rancho campus, one of its innovation hubs, for the manufacturing of advanced semiconductor packaging.
- Intel’s plan to acquire Tower Semiconductor was terminated in August as regulatory approvals could not be obtained in a timely manner, resulting in the payment of a termination fee of $353 million to Tower in adherence to the terms of the merger agreement.
