The ongoing tussle between the US government and the Chinese administration has created waves in the tech industry. This has resulted in huge changes in the market plan and production development of many semiconductor industries.
Though most of the companies which are not US-based has to comply with the policies enforced by the US administration, it has most certainly created many possibilities for the US-based silicon manufacturers. The chipmaker giant Intel Corporation bags one such opportunity.
The company announced its subsidiary, Intel Federal LLC, has won a government contract from the United States Government. The contract will help the United States is shifting its defense industrial manufacturing base to its homeland.
Intel is one of the only three companies in the entire world capable of manufacturing processors based on advanced processing nodes. Hence, the silicon giant acquiring this deal is a huge deal.
One other reason for offering Intel a deal in defense is to protect access to critical semiconductor technology from rivals like China. Intel recently celebrated its 2020 manufacturing and day. The chipmaker showcased its prowess in semiconductor fabrication.
The silicon giant revealed that it produces ten billion transistors each second, and it has compacted four hundred million circuits into one mm2 of a chip. The company also recently revealed its 10nm chipset based Intel Tiger Lake SoCs.
The company is manufacturing its next-gen 7nm chipsets, which is delayed by six months to 2023, due to yield problems during the manufacturing process.
Intel will develop Prototypes that will integrate Government Chips with its products
Intel is developing prototypes means that the silicon manufacturer has to ‘lump’ together multiple chips in a single package. This is referred to as by the semiconductor industry a Chiplets.
Chiplets are designed by Intel to tackle various problems that chip manufacturers face due to an increase in the manufacturing cost of silicon dies as node-scaling increases.
A silicon die is costlier to manufacture and becomes even more costly as nodes become more advance. Intel aims at reducing this cost using its chipsets. Intel chipsets are smaller, which can then be linked together using Through-Silicon-Vias (TVs), short wires, and interposers.
Apart from chipset, Intel also offers its Foveros 3D die-stacking technology. This new technology provides placing chips like CPU and memory chip on an interconnect unit, which are then connected to the packaging material and then to the motherboard.
Aside from Foveros, the company also offers connecting multiple chips through its Embedded Multi-Die Interconnect Bridge (EMIB) technology. This new tech completely removes TSVs from the connecting equation, which is a bonus and decreases production cost.
The US Navy intends to use all of the above Intel’s technology to integrate its purpose-built chips with Intel’s products. This is mainly due to the US administration’s concern over its national security and the integrity of US technology.
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