High energy costs in the European Union are probably among the main reasons behind the bloc's deindustrialization. Many power-hungry production facilities relocate to Asia because it has become nearly impossible for them to stay competitive with current energy prices. Ireland is not an exception, and this makes Intel very concerned (according to RTE) as it runs its major Fab 34 near Leixlip and has to make sure that the fab produces products at competitive costs. But should Intel really be worried?
Intel's Fab 34 in Ireland is the first production facility in Europe to use extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography to make chips in high volumes. The fab is capable of producing microelectronics using Intel 4 (previously known as 7nm) and Intel 3 (formerly known as 5nm) process technologies and currently produces compute tiles for Intel's Core Ultra 1-series (Meteor Lake on Intel 4) and Xeon 6 processors (Granite Rapids and Sierra Forest on Intel 3). These are premium products.
