Mr. Gelsinger, semiconductors are something like the new stars of the economy. From the auto to the telecom industry, the industry doesn't seem to be getting enough chips right now.
Stephan Finsterbusch
Editor in business.
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Everyone in the world today knows what semiconductors are;
how important they are;
and that a lack of them can tear entire supply chains and shut down factories.
The problems are on everyone's lips.
Because they're so threatening.
The global pandemic has shown how vulnerable we are.
The supply chains have to become much more elastic.
Nowadays that is much more important than permanent cost optimization.
So that means: You have to ramp up production quickly and build new chip factories, no matter what the cost.
For us this means first of all: We will be making our European factory in Ireland available for contract manufacturing of 16 nanometer chips, among other things, with immediate effect.
Are you making Ireland a foundry?
We offer foundry services out of Ireland.
Can that really give the auto industry, which is battered by the chip shortage, some breathing space in the short term?
In the short term, nothing works in the semiconductor industry.
Everything in this industry takes some time.
But yeah, I think it will give the auto industry some air.
And then?
Well, the Irish Foundry Project is just one of our actions.
We go much further.
Because the entire economy needs globally balanced offers of semiconductors.
What do you mean by that?
We just have to re-establish balances - balances between supply and demand, balances between the different types of chips, and balances between the different production sites.
I have to ask myself: Why should I build a new semiconductor factory for an old chip technology?
Why not?
Because it costs us a lot of time and money.
It takes me four years to build a new factory - and four years is an eternity in the chip industry.
And you don't have that.
In any case, I am not investing that in a 24-year-old technology.
That doesn't make sense - not for us, not for our customers and not for the entire industry.
So we're investing millions in retrofitting the fab in Ireland so that we can deliver more of the chips our customers need today.
But you also want to build a mega-fab in Europe.
And that's our really big project: new factories for the latest technologies.
And: We are bringing significantly more chip manufacturing capacities to Europe.
Is that a vision or a plan?
This is already a project and it is in full swing.
We received inquiries from 70 potential locations.
Most of the applications came from Italy, France, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.
And are you viewing them now?
We have already narrowed the number to around ten candidates.
How did you separate the wheat from the chaff?
Many of the applicants did not have enough space on offer or they were not optimally connected to the transport infrastructure.
So we made our pre-selection and selected the current candidates from across several European countries.
When will the final decision come?
This year still.
Because we want to be able to start work in the coming year.
What do you mean by mega-fab?
Now when we choose the next location we want to be sure that it is big enough to grow massively.
Solid?
Yes.
The Mega Fab project is a multi-step project.
In the first step we are building two factories.
Then in the next few steps a third, a fourth, a fifth, a sixth, a seventh and an eighth.
Each of these factories is huge, and all of them together make up the mega-fab.
And what does it all cost?
Each of the factories costs around ten billion euros.
So we are investing 80 billion euros in Europe.
That's a lot of money.