Intel Israel to produce new Ivy Bridge processor
Intel Israel Ltd. will produce Intel Corporation's (Nasdaq: INTC) new Ivy Bridge processor, even though Intel Israel did not develop the technology. The company's Fab 28 in Kiryat Gat will be one of Intel's two fabs to produce the processor. Intel spent $2.7 billion to upgrade Fab 28 to 22-nanometer production technology.
Intel unveiled its next-general Ivy Bridge processor yesterday at a virtual event, which the company touted as the "most important technology announcement of the year."
At a conference call following the publication of Intel's first quarter financial report, CEO Paul Otellini said, "We will begin production of the 22-nanometer technology processor at the end of the year. This revolutionary technology will widen Intel's differentiation from its competitors in all segments of the computing world."
The solution Intel found to run forward and increase the number of processors on silicon chips has been on the agenda for a long time, and marks a fundamental change in chip design of the past 50 years: changing the transistors' operating space on processors to operate in three dimensions. Intel designed the Ivy Bridge processor to utilize a more complex silicon structure that includes an additional silicon layer on the wafer around which the flow control is more efficient than for regular transistors.