As one of the largest semiconductor companies in the world, American company Intel is primarily known for its desktop and laptop processors. For several decades, Intel processors have powered a significant chunk of the world’s Windows-powered computers, including desktops and laptops. Intel also has a lineup of discrete graphics cards marketed as Intel Arc.
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If you use a desktop or laptop computer running Microsoft Windows or one of the many Linux distros out there, chances are high that your machine uses an Intel processor. This is because Intel, as of 2024, has a 75.4% market share in the desktop and laptop CPU space, compared to the 24.6% of its chief rival, AMD.
Given that AMD and Intel compete against each other in the same space, it is easy to assume that both companies have identical approaches to the manufacturing of CPUs. That, however, isn’t quite the truth. While most of Intel’s CPUs and chips are manufactured by the company in-house, AMD is a fabless semiconductor company that outsources the production of its processors to third-party manufacturers.
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Intel has fifteen production facilities spread across different parts of the world. Six of its manufacturing facilities are located in the Americas (U.S. and Costa Rica), four are in Asia, and two are spread across Europe and the Middle East. While most of Intel’s older CPUs were designed and manufactured in-house, some of the company’s newer products, including some of its 14th Gen Intel Core chips and the Intel Arc graphics cards, are manufactured by Taiwan’s TSMC.
Locations of Intel’s global production facilities
Intel’s production facilities are advanced manufacturing plants where the company makes semiconductor wafers, which are sliced and packaged into individual chips.
Intel’s fab production facilities in the U.S. are located in three locations: Chandler in Arizona (Ocotillo Campus), Rio Rancho (New Mexico Campus), and Hillsboro in Oregon (Ronler Acres campus and Aloha Campus). In addition to these facilities, Intel has three other production sites outside the U.S. located at Leixlip (Ireland), Kiryat Gat, and Jerusalem (both in Israel).
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Moving on to the company’s testing and assembly development facilities, Intel has a single facility in the United States, located outside the mainland in San Jose, Costa Rica. Intel has two testing and assembly facilities in China as well, located in Shanghai and Chengdu. Malaysia also hosts two Intel production facilities located in the cities of Kulim and Penang. Another Southeast Asian country that hosts an Intel production facility is Vietnam, where Intel has a campus in Ho Chi Minh City.
In addition to these existing production facilities, Intel is also investing more than $28 billion to construct two new chip factories in Licking County, Ohio.
Where does Intel make its graphics cards?
Traditionally, Intel has not been a player in the discrete graphics card space and limited itself to developing on-board graphics for entry-level and mid-range computers. These entry-level graphics processors were part of the CPU, and because Intel’s older CPUs were fabricated at its facilities, these graphics chips were also made at Intel’s facilities spread across the globe.
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In 2021, Intel announced a major shift in its strategy by introducing a lineup of discrete graphics cards under the Intel Arc branding. For these cards, Intel tied up with TSMC to use the latter’s 6nm and 5nm process nodes. These promised better performance and power efficiency than the older 10nm and 7nm process nodes Intel was still dependent on.
All of Intel’s current generation Arc graphics cards, including the Intel Arc B580 and the B570, are, therefore, manufactured at various TSMC facilities spread across Taiwan and the U.S. Neither TSMC nor Intel reveals details of the actual manufacturing sites where these cards are built.
We can expect greater co-operation between Intel and TSMC going forward, too, especially after Intel worked with TSMC for its 14th-gen mobile Meteor Lake processors. These chips use a chiplet design that contains multiple tiles manufactured on different processes by different companies. These 14th-gen mobile CPUs, therefore, are not entirely made by Intel at its facilities, but are dependent on TSMC’s factories as well.
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