Inmos microprocessor factory | |
---|---|
General information | |
Architectural style | High-tech |
Location | Newport |
Address | Cardiff Road |
Country | Wales |
Coordinates | 51°33′57″N3°01′21″W / 51.56583°N 3.02250°W |
Construction started | 1980 |
Completed | 1982 |
Owner | Vishay Intertechnology |
Technical details | |
Size | 8,900 m² |
Floor count | 1 (factory area) |
Design and construction | |
Architect(s) | Project Architects: David Bartlett Pierre Botschi Mike Davies Sally Eaton Michael Elkan Marco Goldschmied Kunimi Hayashi Tim Inskip Julia Marks Peter McMunn Richard Rogers John Young |
Architecture firm | Richard Rogers Partnership |
Structural engineer | Anthony Hunt Associates |
Services engineer | YRM Engineers |
Quantity surveyor | G A Hanscomb |
Main contractor | Laing Construction |
Awards and prizes |
|
The Inmos microprocessor factory, also known as the Inmos factory, previously known as Newport Wafer Fab, [2] now known as Nexperia Newport, [3] is a semiconductor fabrication plant for Inmos built in Newport, Wales, UK in 1980. It has gone through numerous changes in ownership. Since March 2024, the factory has been owned by Vishay Intertechnology.
The architects of the award-winning high-tech building were the Richard Rogers Partnership and the factory was the first building in Wales which Richard Rogers designed. [4]
The building was originally commissioned by Inmos, but by July 1984 Thorn EMI had taken over Inmos. In March 1989, Thorn EMI sold Inmos to SGS-Thomson Microelectronics NV. [5] [6]
In 1999, a management buyout took over the factory, renaming the business, European Semiconductor Manufacturing Limited. [7]
In March 2002, the factory was sold to International Rectifier Company (GB) Limited. [8]
In January 2015 it was acquired by Infineon Technologies, under its subsidiary company IR Newport Ltd. [9]
In September 2017, Infineon sold the site to Neptune 6 Limited, under its subsidiary company of Newport Wafer Fab Limited. [10] [9]
In July 2021 the site was sold to Chinese-owned Dutch-headquartered Nexperia, who also have plants in Hamburg and Manchester. [11] [12] [13]
On 17 November 2022, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy of the British government ordered Nexperia to divest 86% of its ownership interest in Nexperia Newport Limited (NNL, formerly Newport Wafer Fab) for national security reasons, [14] which Nexperia has vowed to appeal. Nexperia's UK manager said they rescued an investment-starved company from collapse, [...] repaid taxpayer loans, secured jobs, wages, bonuses and pensions, and agreed to spend more than £80 million on equipment upgrades since early 2021". [2] In December 2022, it was announced Nexperia had engaged New York law firm, Akin Gump to act on their behalf in their application for a judicial review of the UK government’s decision. [15] Nexperia agreed to sell the facility to Vishay Intertechnology for $177 million in November 2023. [16] In March 2024, the UK government approved the acquisition of the Newport wafer fab, as announced by Secretary of State Oliver Dowden. [17] [18] [19]
Inmos Limited commissioned the Richard Rogers Partnership, now known as Rogers Stirk Harbour & Partners, to design its UK microprocessor manufacturing facility at Newport. The design criterion was for a fast construction, so that it was ready for operation within one year of starting. [20] Richard Rogers until then was known for designing the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Lloyd's building in London. The main contractor for the construction of the building was Laing Construction, the structural engineers were Anthony Hunt Associates, the services engineers were YRM Engineers and the quantity surveyors were GA Hanscomb Partnership. [21]
The technical requirements were that it would house controlled conditions for the production of electronic microchips, a service area for various offices and a staff canteen, all under one roof. [20] The Inmos factory was designed to be a model factory that could be constructed in a variety of locations. The speed of the design process and construction time of the building were critical. The 8,900 square metres (96,000 sq ft) single-storey building was designed to be fabricated off-site, and assembled on the Newport site. [21]
The building is divided into clean and "dirty" areas. The cleanroom being for microchip production and the dirty area for all others services in the building. The building has a central spine which is 7.2 metres (24 ft) wide and 106 m (348 ft) from which all the services and production area emanates from eight bays with the potential to increase this to 20 bays. [20] [22] Suspended beams span 40m from the central spine with masts along the length of the building allowing for a post-free area, [23] [24] and so providing a flexible interior and the possibility of large work areas. [23] Reyner Banham, the architectural critic and writer, said of the Inmos factory that it was "the first really challenging building of the 1980s." [25] Construction began in 1980 and was completed by 1982. [23]
Thorn EMI Inmos.
Semiconductor device fabrication is the process used to manufacture semiconductor devices, typically integrated circuits (ICs) such as computer processors, microcontrollers, and memory chips. It is a multiple-step photolithographic and physio-chemical process during which electronic circuits are gradually created on a wafer, typically made of pure single-crystal semiconducting material. Silicon is almost always used, but various compound semiconductors are used for specialized applications.
Atmel Corporation was a creator and manufacturer of semiconductors before being subsumed by Microchip Technology in 2016. Atmel was founded in 1984. The company focused on embedded systems built around microcontrollers. Its products included microcontrollers radio-frequency (RF) devices including Wi-Fi, EEPROM, and flash memory devices, symmetric and asymmetric security chips, touch sensors and controllers, and application-specific products. Atmel supplies its devices as standard products, application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), or application-specific standard product (ASSPs) depending on the requirements of its customers.
STMicroelectronics N.V. is a multinational corporation and technology company of French-Italian origin. It is headquartered in Plan-les-Ouates, Switzerland and listed on the New York Stock Exchange, on the Euronext Paris in Paris and on the Borsa Italiana in Milan. ST is the largest European semiconductor contract manufacturing and design company. The company resulted from the merger of two government-owned semiconductor companies in 1987: Thomson Semiconducteurs of France and SGS Microelettronica of Italy.
Richard George Rogers, Baron Rogers of Riverside, was a British-Italian architect noted for his modernist and constructivist designs in high-tech architecture. He was a senior partner at Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, previously known as the Richard Rogers Partnership, until June 2020.
Inmos International plc and two operating subsidiaries, Inmos Limited (UK) and Inmos Corporation (US), was a British semiconductor company founded by Iann Barron, Richard Petritz, and Paul Schroeder in July 1978. Inmos Limited’s head office and design office were at Aztec West business park in Bristol, England.
Wafer fabrication is a procedure composed of many repeated sequential processes to produce complete electrical or photonic circuits on semiconductor wafers in semiconductor device fabrication process. Examples include production of radio frequency (RF) amplifiers, LEDs, optical computer components, and microprocessors for computers. Wafer fabrication is used to build components with the necessary electrical structures.
Maxim Integrated, a subsidiary of Analog Devices, designs, manufactures, and sells analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits for the automotive, industrial, communications, consumer, and computing markets. Maxim's product portfolio includes power and battery management ICs, sensors, analog ICs, interface ICs, communications solutions, digital ICs, embedded security, and microcontrollers. The company is headquartered in San Jose, California, and has design centers, manufacturing facilities, and sales offices worldwide.
In the microelectronics industry, a semiconductor fabrication plant is a factory for semiconductor device fabrication.
Nexperia is a semiconductor manufacturer headquartered in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. It is a subsidiary of the partially state-owned Chinese company Wingtech Technology, a publicly traded company. It has front-end factories in Hamburg, Germany, and Greater Manchester, England. It is the former Standard Products business unit of NXP Semiconductors. The company's product range includes bipolar transistors, diodes, ESD protection, TVS diodes, MOSFETs, and logic devices.
RSHP is a British architectural firm, founded in 1977 and previously known as the Richard Rogers Partnership which became Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners in 2007. The firm rebranded from Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners to simply RSHP on 30 June 2022, after the retirement and death of Richard Rogers. Its main offices are located in the Leadenhall Building, London, completed to the firm's designs in 2014. Previously they were at the Thames Wharf Studios. In its various incarnations it has designed many important buildings including the Lloyd's building and the Millennium Dome in London and the Senedd building in Cardiff.
Vishay Intertechnology, Inc. is an American manufacturer of discrete semiconductors and passive electronic components founded by Polish-born businessman Felix Zandman. Vishay has manufacturing plants in Israel, Asia, Europe, and the Americas where it produces rectifiers, diodes, MOSFETs, optoelectronics, selected integrated circuits, resistors, capacitors, and inductors. Vishay Intertechnology revenues for 2023 were $3.4 billion. At the end of 2023, Vishay had approximately 23,500 full-time employees.
GlobalFoundries Inc. is a multinational semiconductor contract manufacturing and design company incorporated in the Cayman Islands and headquartered in Malta, New York. Created by the divestiture of the manufacturing arm of AMD, the company was privately owned by Mubadala Investment Company, a sovereign wealth fund of the United Arab Emirates, until an initial public offering (IPO) in October 2021.
Semiconductor consolidation is the trend of semiconductor companies collaborating in order to come to a practical synergy with the goal of being able to operate in a business model that can sustain profitability.
Tower Semiconductor Ltd. is an Israeli company that manufactures integrated circuits using specialty process technologies, including SiGe, BiCMOS, Silicon Photonics, SOI, mixed-signal and RFCMOS, CMOS image sensors, non-imaging sensors, power management (BCD), and non-volatile memory (NVM) as well as MEMS capabilities. Tower Semiconductor also owns 51% of TPSCo, an enterprise with Nuvoton Technology Corporation Japan (NTCJ).
The semiconductor industry, including Integrated Circuit (IC) manufacturing, design, and packaging, forms a major part of Taiwan's IT industry. Due to its strong capabilities in OEM wafer manufacturing and a complete industry supply chain, Taiwan has been able to distinguish itself as a leading microchip manufacturer and dominate the global marketplace. Taiwan’s semiconductor sector accounted for US$115 billion, around 20 percent of the global semiconductor industry. In sectors such as foundry operations, Taiwanese companies account for 50 percent of the world market, with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) the biggest player in the foundry market.
The 2020–2023 global chip shortage was a worldwide chip shortage affecting more than 169 industries. The crisis led to major price increases, long queues, and reselling among consumers and manufacturers for automobiles, graphics cards, video game consoles, computers, household appliances, and other consumer electronics that require integrated circuits.
Wingtech Technology is a partially state-owned semiconductor and communications product integration company based in Jiaxing and listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. The company was founded in 2006 by a former STMicroelectronics engineer. Wingtech's main business includes semiconductor chip design, wafer manufacturing, optical imaging and communication product integration.