Corporate Vice President General Manager, Manufacturing and Operations
By Keyvan Esfarjani
As I take on the leadership of Intel’s renowned Manufacturing and Operations organization, my team and I are committed to doing what is necessary to deliver a predictable cadence of leadership products for our customers. I also want to publicly recognize the outstanding work done by this group and provide an update on the development of our global manufacturing operations.
Last week, we launched our 11th Gen Intel® Core™ processors (code-named “Tiger Lake”), the latest system-on-chip (SoC) from Intel. Tiger Lake SoCs incorporate several innovations in process technology, such as gate and interconnect design improvements, that will deliver a new era of laptop performance and unprecedented value for our customers. Tiger Lake is also the first Intel® processor designed and built on our SuperFin technology, a redefinition of FinFET that enables the largest single intranode enhancement in Intel’s history. SuperFin delivers performance improvements comparable to a full-node transition and enables a leadership product roadmap.
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Like all our silicon products, Tiger Lake is an astonishing manufacturing achievement. It represents everything that we at Intel are dedicated to and showcases the differentiation of our integrated design and manufacturing (IDM) model. We continue to gain a competitive advantage from the strong connection across manufacturing, architecture, process design and packaging technologies. I want to recognize Intel’s team in Oregon, which has done much of the heavy lifting to bring Tiger Lake to reality with outstanding quality. Our Fab Operations in Arizona and Israel have also done excellent jobs with process matching and accelerating the 10nm ramp ahead of schedule.
I am grateful for the dedication of our manufacturing workforce during the ongoing pandemic. Intel’s safety culture continues to be a shining example of what it means to be best in class. There was no playbook for a situation of this scale, yet our Manufacturing and Operations team quickly made operational changes and adopted safety measures to ensure continued safe operation of our fabs and assembly/test plants. These efforts have kept our global manufacturing operations running smoothly and producing the essential technology the world needs now more than ever. It has been inspiring.
Manufacturing and Operations is committed to be the supplier of choice to our customers. Fortunately, we have had high demand for our products. As a result, we continue to ramp up capacity and invest in our manufacturing facilities in the U.S. and around the world. Intel CFO George Davis said in our second-quarter earnings call that we expect 2020 capital expenditures of approximately $15 billion. In October we will celebrate 40 years of Intel operations in Arizona with our newest multibillion-dollar state-of-the-art factory expansion. We are also currently expanding our manufacturing facilities in Oregon, Ireland and Israel and investing in New Mexico for leading-edge product adjacencies such as Intel® Optane™ advanced memory.
Having these additional fab spaces will allow Intel to support the growing needs of our customers worldwide. As always, site expansion and the related investment will occur in stages and are subject to change based on business, economic and other factors.
As we recently shared, Intel has adopted a disaggregated design methodology. This gives us the flexibility to design the best-performing and highest-quality products for our customers by bringing together different IP, components and process technologies in a single product. Sometimes, that includes combining components from external foundries with those from our own fabs while upholding the highest standards of Intel quality. We will continue our strategic use of such foundries just as we have done for nearly two decades.
Intel’s Manufacturing and Operations group has been instrumental in enabling Intel to go above and beyond for our customers and deliver record financial results. As we look forward to the future, we will innovate, accelerate and deliver a predictable cadence of competitive products. I am honored to be part of this team and together we will do wonderful things.
Keyvan Esfarjani is corporate vice president and general manager of Manufacturing and Operations at Intel Corporation.
Photo: Production employees work in Intel’s Fab 24 plant in Leixlip, Ireland. (Credit: Intel Corporation)
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Forward-Looking Statements
Statements in this article that refer to future plans and expectations, including with respect to capital expenditures, site expansions, and other manufacturing plans, are forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Statements that refer to or are based on estimates, forecasts, projections, uncertain events or assumptions, including statements relating to future products and technology and the expected availability and benefits of such products and technology, and anticipated trends in our businesses or the markets relevant to them, also identify forward-looking statements. Such statements are based on management’s current expectations, unless an earlier date is indicated, and involve many risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in these forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially are set forth in Intel’s most recent earnings release and SEC filings, which are available at www.intc.com. Intel does not undertake, and expressly disclaims any duty, to update any statement made in this article, whether as a result of new information, new developments or otherwise, except to the extent that disclosure may be required by law.