Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Intel to unveil next big move in chip manufacturing today

By David Matthews January 20, 2022

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger will host a webcast that may reveal a major move in its chip manufacturing business. Amid the continuing chip shortage, this announcement may allow the tech community to breathe a sigh of relief if Intel does indeed announce something significant. The webcast is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. PT today, January 21.

Intel’s Newsroom page for the event notes that Gelsinger, along with Intel’s supply chain boss Keyvan Esfarjani, will “share details of Intel’s latest plans for investment in manufacturing leadership.” The webcast will also allow Intel to talk about how it’s meeting the increased demand for semiconductors and tightening its global supply chain. Tom’s Hardware reports that an Oregonian reporter believes that investment in manufacturing means a new semiconductor factory in Columbus, Ohio.

Image used with permission by copyright holder

Also to be addressed on the webcast announcement is that Intel’s investment is part of its integrated device manufacturing (IDM 2.0) strategy. This strategy, announced last March, is Intel’s plan for expanding their manufacturing capability of its own chips, as well as becoming a foundry for other customers. Part of that announcement includes a roughly $20 billion investment to build two new fabrication plants in Arizona. Another factory announcement in Ohio would be consistent with the IDM 2.0 strategy.

Recommended Videos

Given how tight the semiconductor market is at the moment, any announcement of expanding production is great news. While it will take quite a while for the fabs to be built and started, it should do much to stabilize the market if a global emergency, such as the ongoing pandemic, devastates the supply chain.

It’s unlikely Intel will reveal any new information about future chip designs. However, the company will undoubtedly utilize the extra fab space to bolster production of upcoming chips such as Meteor Lake and its own Arc Alchemist GPUs. This also ties in to the company’s announcement last year about simplifying its process naming schemes as it pushes past nanometers.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

David is a freelance journalist based just outside of Washington D.C. specializing in consumer technology and gaming. He has…

Computing

Intel and Microsoft just announced a huge collaboration

Intel has announced a new collaboration with Microsoft, revealing plans for the tech giant to utilize its services in manufacturing a custom computing chip. Intel is optimistic about surpassing its internal deadline of 2025 to outpace its primary competitor, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), in advanced chip manufacturing.

The announcement came during an event held in San Jose, California, marking the inaugural technology conference for Intel Foundry, the company's contract manufacturing arm established to compete with TSMC. Intel also outlined its strategy to reclaim the title of producing the world's fastest chips from TSMC, with the goal being to achieve this milestone later in the year with its Intel 18A manufacturing technology.

Computing

A major era in Intel chip technology may be coming to an end

Intel's next-generation Arrow Lake chips are said to be coming out later this year, but we don't know much about them just yet. However, a new leak shows us that two crucial features may be missing from the next-gen CPU lineup: hyperthreading and support for the AVX-512 extension. If Intel is ditching hyperthreading, it's not entirely unexpected, but it might make it trickier for even its best processors to beat AMD.

Hyperthreading allows physical cores in Intel processors to perform two tasks simultaneously, improving efficiency and performance in multi-threaded applications. Intel first introduced it in 2002, but it hasn't used the technology in every generation of its CPUs between then and now. The tech was all but gone from client processors for many years following its launch, although it was still present in certain models. Since then, Intel has selectively implemented HT across its product stack. In the last few years, it became a staple, especially in midrange and high-end chips.

Computing

Intel’s new Core Ultra chips needed to be more than this

A lot has been made of Intel's new Meteor Lake chips. They have a new brand, naming scheme, and even new technology in the form of the NPU (neural processing unit).

And they come at an important time. The stakes have never been higher for Intel, as it faces competition from all sides. They're also an important litmus test for the idea of the NPU, or neural processing unit.