Dec 10, 2010 09:56 GMT  ·  By

Since Intel is quite bent on making its own chips, it plans to build a new manufacturing facility and a recent report states that the Santa Clara, California-based company plans to be one of, if not the first to deliver 450mm wafers.

Currently, there are only three known companies in the entire IT industry that want to start making chips on 450 mm wafers.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is, predictably, one of them, while the other two are Samsung and Intel.

''Intel is very interested in 450mm. D1X is being (contructed) to be compatible with 450mm. [...] I sense that some of the equipment vendors are interested in 450-mm,'' said Mark Bohr, Intel senior fellow and director of process architecture and integration at Intel, according to EETimes at least.

Since three companies aren't many at all, producers of equipment aren't exactly spending a lot on the type required for such factories.

There is also the belief that, financially, 450mm fabs aren't exactly a good idea because they require maximal utilization, which is hard to achieve.

Of course, certain parties seem to think that more companies are involved in 450mm development than one might expect.

''Right now, more than 90 percent of the equipment supply base is involved in some form of 450-mm development, though most these still hold public positions of never.,” said G. Dan Hutcheson, CEO of VLSI Research Inc, according to the aforementioned report.

Granted, 450mm wafers are supposedly going to reduce the manufacturing cost per chip, but whatever other plans Intel had might not turn out as intended.

Back in October, Intel's soon-to-be-built D1X facility was said to be meant to make 16mm chips, this goal expected to be met by 2013.

Unfortunately, by that time, other companies will no longer be interested in 450mm equipment for manufacturing of products.

Finally, X-bit Labs speculated that the Santa Clara, California-based chip giant won't even bother trying to make 16nm on 450mm, instead jumping straight to 12nm or 10nm technologies, despite any original plans it might have had.