Intel Foundry, the semiconductor manufacturing arm of Intel Corp., has garnered more CHIPS and Science Act funding under the U.S. government’s Secure Enclave program. The chipmaker also announced that Amazon Web Services (AWS) has expanded its collaboration to receive product and wafers from Intel.
This is the second funding that Intel has received from the CHIPS Act with the first being $8.5 billion to help with the construction of two fabs in Arizona, two fabs in Ohio and expansion to Intel’s New Mexico and Oregon facilities.
The new $3 billion in direct funding for the Secure Enclave program will allow Intel to expand its trusted manufacturing of semiconductor for the U.S. government. Intel claims it will be the only American company that now designs and manufacturers logic chips for the domestic supply chain and the U.S. government.
What is the Secure Enclave program?
The government program is like previous projects between Intel and the Department of Defense (DoD) such as the Rapid Assured Microelectronic Prototypes — Commercial (RAMP-C) and State-of-the-Art Heterogeneous Integration Prototype (SHIP).
Intel said the deal will help secure the domestic chip supply chain and collaborate with the DoD to help with the resilience of U.S. technological systems for advanced solutions.
Co-investment
The deal with AWS is a co-investment in custom chip designs for a multiple years and multiple billions of dollars framework that will cover product and wafers from Intel. This is an expansion of the previous collaboration between the companies.
Under the deal, Intel will produce an AI fabric chip for AWS on Intel 18 A process technology, the company’s most advanced node. Intel will also produce a customer Xeon 6 chip on Intel 3 process technology.
Intel said it will continue to build a semiconductor manufacturing and AI ecosystem in the New Albany region of Ohio. While it delayed the progress of the fabs, it has plans to build two state-of-the-art fabs for Intel Foundry. AWS is also investing in the region with $7.8 billion to expand its data center operations in Central Ohio.
