Mostly but not 100% true. Before becoming Micron Singapore, it was IMF Singapore. Micron buying out intel's share in IMF Utah and Singapore from under intel's feet was what caused Fab 68 to get converted to a NAND flash fab and the subsequent mass build out at the site. Besides E-Asia, I think the canned Texas fab was also a large labor pool that was missed. In light of the TI and Samsung expansions I think Texas is now too crowded for intel (or anyone else for that matter) at this point.It's not just Japan, Intel has been avoiding to have a fab in East Asia (except mainland China) altogether.
I agree with your premise. Although it is worth considering that before fab 42 in late 2020, intel didn't build a new fab for over a decade. And the last greenfield site intel built was Ireland back in like 1990. Back then the ROC, ROK, and Singapore had a far more nascent semiconductor industry. Israel was also kind of a no brainier since they already had a design section over there. Once you have these five sites you would be foolish to open more expensive greenfield locals rather than just expand the current sites to the limits permitted.But Intel has no problem to build fabs in Ireland, Israel, and Germany.
Considering the East Asia's semiconductor supply chain, engineering talents, and manufacturing environment, I believe Intel made a big mistake and missed many great opportunities.
As for Ohio and Germany, I think your argument holds more weight. I suspect that Ohio's location might be better then you suspect though. Ohio has access to abundant water and close proximity to the cornucopia of Midwestern engineering schools. My heavily biased opinion (as I grew up in the Chicago land area and went to school at Iowa State) is that there really isn't any other area in the US with such a high quantity of quality engineering schools. Something I also noticed a bit when I was looking for jobs out of college was alot of Ohio job listings with the description saying that you would work at D1 or Ocotillo, I assume these long term seed assignments would be harder (both for intel and the people who would be leaving their homes) to do if the applicants had to come from abroad. Being in a country where English is the primary language also definitely makes cross site communication easier. Germany seems like a harder choice to justify. The only thing I can think of is that they don't have to compete with as many fabs as they would if they built in say TW or Texas. Of course like in the US the greater population of engineers will to some degree be counteracted by having to compete with the Germany's many other industries (whereas someone like TSMC only needs to compete with their suppliers, fellow fab operators, and TW's electronics industry).Now after Intel committed to build or expand more fabs in Germany, Ireland, Israel, Ohio, and Arizona, I don't think Intel can afford to build another fab in Japan or Singapore or in any other East Asian countries. No mater it's 40% subsidy or 50% subsidy from the local government.
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