Mr. Gelsinger, semiconductor It’s like a new star in the economy. From the automotive to the telecommunications industry, the industry does not seem to have enough chips.
Everyone in the world today knows what semiconductors are; how important they are; the absence of them will tear up the entire supply chain and shut down factories.
The problem lies in everyone’s mouth.
Because they are too threatening. The global pandemic has shown how vulnerable we are. The supply chain must become more resilient. Today, this is much more important than permanent cost optimization.
This means: Regardless of the cost, you must quickly increase production and build a new chip factory.
For us, this means first of all: we will make our European factory in Ireland available for contract manufacturing of 16-nanometer chips, with immediate effect.
Do you make Ireland a foundry?
We provide foundry services outside of Ireland.
Can this really provide some breathing room in the short term for the auto industry plagued by chip shortages?
In the short term, the semiconductor industry will not help. Everything in this industry takes some time. But yes, I think this will bring some air to the automotive industry.
and then?
Well, the Irish casting project is just one of our actions. We go further. Because the entire economy needs a globally balanced supply of semiconductors.
What do you mean?
We only need to re-establish the balance-the balance between supply and demand, the balance between different types of chips, and the balance between different production bases. I have to ask myself: Why should I build a new semiconductor factory for the old chip technology?
why not?
Because it cost us a lot of time and money. It took me four years to build a new factory-four years are eternal for the chip industry.
And you didn’t.
In any case, I will not invest it in a 24 year old technology. It doesn’t make sense-it doesn’t make sense for us, our customers, or the industry as a whole. Therefore, we are investing millions of dollars to transform the fab in Ireland so that we can provide more chips that our customers need today.
But you also want to build a large fab in Europe.
This is our real big project: a new factory with the latest technology. And: We are bringing more chip manufacturing capabilities to Europe.
Is this a vision or a plan?
This is already a project and is in full swing. We received inquiries from 70 potential locations. Most applications came from Italy, France, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.
Are you looking at them now?
We have reduced the number to about ten candidates.
How do you separate the wheat from the chaff?
Many applicants do not have enough space or they do not have the best connection to the transportation infrastructure. Therefore, we conducted a pre-selection and selected current candidates from a number of European countries.
Take the digital future in your own hands.
When will the final decision come?
Still this year. Because we hope to be able to start work in the coming year.
What does a large fab mean?
Now, when we choose the next location, we want to make sure it is large enough for large-scale growth.
hard?
Yes. The Mega Fab project is a multi-step project. In the first step, we are building two factories. Then in the next few steps, the third step, the fourth step, the fifth step, the sixth step, the seventh step and the eighth step. Each of these factories is huge, and together they make up a large fab.
And what is the price of all this?
The cost of each plant is approximately 10 billion euros. So we invested 80 billion euros in Europe.
This is a lot of money.
