Working at full capacity! Intel offers overtime pay to accelerate Ohio wafer fab: EMIB-T packaging yield approaches 90%

According to media reports, Intel is pushing full-speed construction of its massive Ohio wafer fab park, targeting full operation by 2031. To accelerate this long-term plan, the company is offering employees high overtime bonuses to incentivize engineering progress.

The park covers approximately 1,000 acres (about 405 hectares) and will produce Intel's "Angstrom era" process nodes, including the 18A and 14A technologies. Under the plan, the park will achieve high-volume manufacturing of the 14A process by 2031.

Meanwhile, Intel's EMIB-T advanced packaging technology has also made significant progress, with the only unresolved critical bottleneck being substrate yield.

EMIB (Embedded Multi-die Interconnect Bridge) technology embeds miniature silicon bridges into an organic substrate to connect multiple chiplets within a single processor package. This approach places high-density micro-bumps only along the edges where chiplets connect to the silicon bridges, enabling high-speed interconnects. EMIB-T further introduces through-silicon vias (TSVs) through the bridges, and these vertical channels can deliver power and high-speed signals directly from the bottom of the package to stacked processors or memory, supporting 3D chip stacking.

Notably, EMIB-T costs approximately 50% less than TSMC's CoWoS solution. Intel expects to offer EMIB-T packaging services at scale in 2027. Currently, the packaging yield for this technology is approaching 90%, but the substrate yield remains at around 50%, which is the primary obstacle to capacity expansion.

The substrate used in EMIB-T comprises three key structural layers: the base organic substrate panel, manufactured by suppliers such as Ibiden (core supplier), Shinko, Unimicron, and AT&S, with precision-machined cavities to house the silicon bridges; the dielectric layer stack covering the silicon bridges, using the industry-standard Ajinomoto Build-up Film (ABF); and the silicon bridges themselves containing TSVs for vertical signal and power transmission.

Currently, the substrate stage is slowing down the progress of EMIB-T's large-scale packaging services. Supplier Unimicron recently stated that EMIB-T is still in the early stages of development, with the current focus being on rapidly ramping up capacity and improving yield.