Intel To Build 'Secure Enclave' Chip Facilities For Defense Applications (siliconangle.com) 21
According to the Wall Street Journal, Intel may receive billions in U.S. government funding to build secret facilities that produce microchips for the military. SiliconANGLE reports: The facilities, which have not yet been disclosed, would be designated as a "secure enclave" to reduce the military's dependence on chips imported from East Asia, particularly Taiwan, which is at risk of a future invasion from China. The funding for the new facilities would come from the $52.7 billion allocated under the Chips Act, signed into law by President Biden in August 2022. The Chips Act, which had bipartisan support, promotes chipmaking and scientific research through funding and tax credits. The law is aimed at encouraging domestic manufacturing of semiconductors and helping U.S. companies compete with China in developing cutting-edge technologies.
The new Intel facilities, presuming they go ahead, could reside partly at Intel's Arizona factory complex, according to sources referenced in the Journal report. The exact amount of funding that will be made available is not yet known, but "people familiar with the situation" tell the Journal that they could cost about $3 billion to $4 billion, which would come from the $39 billion set aside in the Chips Act for manufacturing grants. Officials from the Commerce Department, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Defense Department are said to be negotiating the project with Intel but have not yet made a final decision.
The first manufacturing grants under the Chip Act are expected to be announced in the coming weeks. The program was reported to have had more than 500 entities express interest and more than 130 have submitted applications or pre-applications for funding.
The new Intel facilities, presuming they go ahead, could reside partly at Intel's Arizona factory complex, according to sources referenced in the Journal report. The exact amount of funding that will be made available is not yet known, but "people familiar with the situation" tell the Journal that they could cost about $3 billion to $4 billion, which would come from the $39 billion set aside in the Chips Act for manufacturing grants. Officials from the Commerce Department, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Defense Department are said to be negotiating the project with Intel but have not yet made a final decision.
The first manufacturing grants under the Chip Act are expected to be announced in the coming weeks. The program was reported to have had more than 500 entities express interest and more than 130 have submitted applications or pre-applications for funding.
The facilities, which have not yet been disclosed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
The new Intel facilities, presuming they go ahead, could reside partly at Intel's Arizona factory complex
Intel declined to comment on the report, as did the various departments awarding the funding.
No, they didn't.
National security goes F00F! (Score:2)
Maybe spend the money on designing chips that don't come with baked-in security vulnerabilities?
Re:National security goes F00F! (Score:4, Insightful)
Why would they do that? They make good money putting those holes in.
Re: (Score:2)
Why would they do that? They make good money putting those holes in.
One of the buyers, the military, may prefer it that way for the chips it will use. Look at aircraft. F-16s built for export got different parts than F-16s built for the USAF.
Re:National security goes F00F! (Score:5, Informative)
F-16s built for export got different parts than F-16s built for the USAF.
Of course. The buying country might have different requirements for command and control devices, different radars, different radios, different refueling types (USAF planes use refueling booms, Navy and other NATO countries use probe-and-drogue). Foreign sales equipment typically isn't authorized to have the newest, classified equipment installed in case the equipment gets captured or stolen. Flight control avionics are usually not classified but radars, radios, fleet networking, and electronic warfare equipment will probably be a generation or two behind the most advanced models.
Re: (Score:3)
Maybe spend the money on designing chips that don't come with baked-in security vulnerabilities?
Well the fab is only $3B or the $53B allocated, so there should be some funds for auditing designs.
It'll work but (Score:5, Informative)
Those chips will be jaw-droppingly, mind-numbingly expensive. Not 50% more expensive. Not twice as expensive. Probably not even 10 times as expensive. I would guess a full 2 orders of magnitude or more expensive than an equivalent commercial chip.
There's a reason why our military goes with COTS parts at every opportunity. I remember in the 1980s when our military was buying $25,000 dollar screwdrivers. Seems like we've forgotten a few hard-learned lessons.
Re: (Score:3)
No, the military learned COTS is not the panacea either.
Because military equipment procurement is generally measured in decades. For some stuff, COTS works - a screwdriver is pretty universal. You can buy a Snap On screwdriver today. 10 years from now, you can buy it from Stanley. There are multipl
Re: (Score:2)
I can attest, that things even unused, will mysterious stop working. Sure, its a lot lower fail rate than things in use.
Also, should there be a real need, like a war, that warehouse would be empty in a month and no one to build the parts for 6+ months.
Better for certain things to have an "LTS" release on a stable 32nm process even if it's not bleeding edge.
Besides, most things wont have a benefit noticeable to a consumer. Radio, heater, keyboard, HVAC, cars (outside self driving), toys, dishwasher, washer/
Re: (Score:2)
I was a developer on some of these late 70's early 80's military projects. At the time we were pushing the state of the art and beyond. Only U.S. parts could be used and even those had to meet Mil Spec for extreme conditions.
The military was far and away the primary buyer at the time and we were the premier software developers for this new hardware. Then came the rest of the world.
In a very few years the resources of the world easily surpassed our little enclave of special people with
put the intel inside logo on the Nukes and W.O.P.R (Score:3)
put the intel inside logo on the Nukes and W.O.P.R.
Also to be safe we will keep control at the top as well removing the men with brass keys
Need to make those backdoored chips somewhere... (Score:3)
That is probably the one big misdirection here: These chips are not for the _US_ military.
Reflections on Trusting Trust (Score:3)
That fab is going to have a lot of designs made by computers. And hence software. Frankly, it's impossible or near impossible to manually verify that there's no back doors built-in to the chips by the design software they're using unless they develop everything from the ground up from scratch. Anything short of that brings up the spectre explained in the paper "Reflections on Trusting Trust" by Ken Thompson back in 1984.
Re: (Score:2)
Might be there's already enough compromised parts entering the military procurement stream this is really a solution being implemented because of necessity with a "don't let perfect be the enemy of the good" solution. Thompson's right on the problem of a compromised compiler for a compiler for a compiler but this might be addressing a near term problem with a clear solution. A scrutinised software and hardware stack from logic gates up is not something with a comparably clear answer.
Or I could be wrong and
Almost had to (Score:2)
But DoJ... (Score:2)
But DoJ will sue them for not hiring "refugees."