Intel Corp., a top global chipmaker embraces winning a contract by the US Department of Defense to offer chip manufacturing services.

The contract was awarded under a government project known as RAMP-C (Rapid Assured Microelectronics Prototypes – Commercial). RAMP-C aims to promote the adoption of a U.S.-based chip manufacturing ecosystem for the Defense Department's processors. The contract's value is still kept under wraps.

The Defense Department's new contract with Intel will include upcoming microprocessor technology. The company said it will collaborate with partners to create and test semiconductors using its forthcoming Intel 18A manufacturing process, which is slated to go live in early 2025.

The procedure is likely to result in significant hardware advancements across the board.

Intel's Foundry Services unit, which was recently created, will handle the task. Historically, Intel has mostly produced chips based on its own internally created processing designs. The chipmaker's Foundry Services business will manufacture chips based on customers' unique designs.

On the new project for the Defense Department, Intel is collaborating with a number of other companies. Cadence Design Systems Inc. and Synopsys Inc., the two largest semiconductor design software companies, are among them.

On the other hand, IBM is also taking part, since it already has a commercial server processor line and invests in silicon research, its shadow stretches across the semiconductor ecosystem. Also, the company's experts demonstrated the world's first two-nanometer chip earlier this year.

Currently, it so happens that extreme ultraviolet lithography, or EUV, systems are commonly used to create the most sophisticated chips. Laser light beams are used to cut transistors into silicon wafers in these devices.

Intel has stated that it will produce its next 18A chips using a more advanced sort of EUV system known as a High NA EUV machine.

There are currently no High NA EUV systems available on the market. However, thanks to a partnership with ASML Holding LV, the world's leading manufacturer of extreme ultraviolet lithography hardware, Intel expects to receive the first such machine once it is built. To carve transistors into chips, high NA EUV systems will use more powerful light beams than current EUV machines.

The use of more powerful light beams is expected to help machines to carve transistors with more accuracy, resulting in more efficient chip manufacture. The 18A process will improve the internal structure of Intel chips in addition to enhancing how they are created. Processors represent the ones and zeros that make up digital data as electrons at the hardware level.
The transistors in the processor manipulate electrons to do computations. A gate, a small component inside each transistor, is in charge of controlling the particles.

Intel Chief Executive Officer Pat Gelsinger stated, "one of the most important lessons of the previous year is the strategic relevance of semiconductors and the value to the United States of having a strong domestic semiconductor business. Intel is the only firm in the United States that both designs and manufactures logic chips at the cutting edge of technology”.