Hacker News Reader

Comment by WallWextra | Hacker News Reader

It seems like this could pose some problem for the DOD, since IBM was the only trusted foundry with a cutting-edge process for logic. Presumably they don't want the government of Abu Dhabi fabbing chips for them.

View on HN

Do you have a source for this? Afair, it was always Intel that was touting "made in US" on its marketing slides..

The majority of Intel's fabs are in the U.S., but they don't seem to be part of the DoD Trusted Foundry program. I'm not sure if there are barriers to them being certified, or if they just aren't interested.

The current list: http://www.dmea.osd.mil/otherdocs/AccreditedSuppliers.pdf

I believe that list is for fabs who can supply the DoD with custom/proprietary chips (i.e. with business models similar to TSMC or Samsung but for defense related products). Intel has not been in that line of business so there is no point in joining the program.

They did recently announce two fab customers, an FPGA manufacturer and then something else that is also low volume and obscure. So maybe the DoD can make it worth their while.

That one FPGA manufacturer, by the way, WAS started by people associated with the DOD intelligence apparatus. I can't remember the name of the company though, but they're making 22nm FPGAs on Intel's tri-gate process that they introduced with Haswell.

As of mid-2013 they had five fab customers [1]: Achronix, Tabula, Netronome, Microsemi, and Altera.

[1] http://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/index.ssf/2013/07/i...

Intel generally does not fab other companies chip designs, with only a few exceptions.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com