As part of the IDM 2.0 strategy, Intel last week announced an ambitious product and technical process map, in which the upgrade of advanced technology is very aggressive, less than 4 years to upgrade the 5th generation of technology, and from 2025 to start a new generation of EUV lithography machine, the price of more than 1.9 billion a unit.
The reason why Intel is so radical is because it has suffered losses in the preemptive use of the EUV process, they originally planned to go on the EUV process at the 10nm node, but the EUV lithography machine was not mature at the time, and then it was preempted by TSMC and Samsung, and the process was lagging behind under the yin and yang errors.
Intel's current plan is to use the EUV lithography machine in the Intel 4 process (the previous 7nm process), which is scheduled to start production in the second half of this year, and the first product is the 14th-generation Core Meteor Lake processor in 2023.
The current EUV lithography machine is still NA 0.33 technology, intel's focus is on the next generation of EUV lithography machine, that is, NA 0.55 ASML new generation lithography machine, it is said that the cost is as high as 300 million US dollars, about 1.9 billion yuan.
In fact, in the past 4 years, Intel has actually placed orders for 6 SETS of NA 0.55 EUV lithography machines, which are divided into two types, Twinscan Exe: 5000 series is mainly used for process research and development, the capacity output is 185WPH, 185 wafers per hour are produced, and delivered in the first half of 2023.
The mass-produced NA 0.55 lithography machine is Twinscan Exe: 5200, the production capacity is increased to 200WPH, 200 wafers per hour, and it is expected to roll off the production line in 2024, and Intel's 20A process is just in mass production in 2024.
However, Intel is not afraid of the postponement of the next generation of EUV lithography machines this time? For this issue, Ann Kelleher, an executive in charge of Intel's process technology, also talked about this possibility in an interview a few days ago, but she said that even if it is postponed, it will not bankrupt the company, but there is a B plan.
As for how Intel's Plan B solves the problem of ticket jumping for the new generation of EUV lithography machines, there is no clear information.
