Under the agreement, Tower will make use of Intel’s advanced manufacturing facility in New Mexico. Tower said that it 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 analogue processing.
This agreement demonstrates the commitment of both to expand their respective foundry footprints with solutions and scaled capabilities. 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 pleased that Tower sees the unique value we provide and chose us to open their 300mm U.S. capacity corridor.”
Tower CEO Russell Ellwanger added, “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.”
This agreement shows how IFS enables access to corridors of manufacturing capacity across Intel’s global factory network, including in the US, Europe, Israel and Asia.
For Tower, this is the next step in its path to increased scale, serving an expanding customer base in 300mm technologies led by strong market adoption of its industry-leading 65nm BCD power and RF SOI technologies.
The increased scale resulting from this agreement will enable Tower not only to serve larger opportunities with existing technologies but also enhance partnerships with industry-leading customers that will help forge strong next-generation technology roadmaps.
