Industry Expert Blogs

Intel is widely regarded as being not only the world's largest semiconductor supplier, but also a leading-edge manufacturing process developer and implementer. While foundries such as TSMC are still finalizing their 20 nm processes, for example, Intel has been shipping 22 nm-based production ICs ("Ivy Bridge" CPUs) since May of last year; the company had previously showcased its first 22 nm test wafer at the September 2009 Intel Developer Forum. Intel similarly achieved a several-year production lead on the prior process node (32 nm for itself, 28 nm for foundries). Historically, Intel's processes and fabrication facilities were exclusively used to manufacture its own products. In recent years, however, the company has made its first few forays into the foundry business, in partnership with programmable logic startups.

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