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Intel Explores Software-Defined Networking (SDN) Technology for Wafer Fabs

Update time : 2023-09-06 10:05:36

As part of the company's expansion plans to upgrade its Integrated Device Manufacturing (IDM) 2.0 blueprint released in 2021 and build a new generation of chip fabs, Intel has reportedly implemented software-defined networking SDN technology at its semiconductor manufacturing plants in a bid to seek out scalability, availability, and security benefits for its manufacturing facilities.

Rob Colby, project leader, said, "The idea was to leverage data center technology and bring it to the manufacturing floor, where we had to replace the existing network infrastructure, which was classic Ethernet, and put in SDN. i've upgraded the entire factory from one version of the code to another without any downtime of the factory tooling. "
In addition to zero downtime, the move to Cisco's application-centric infrastructure (ACI) has enabled Intel to address the increasingly complex security challenges associated with new forms of connectivity, persistent threats and software vulnerabilities. The two companies met for more than a year to plan and implement process security and automation technologies previously used only in data centers.
"This is revolutionary for our manufacturing sector", Colby added, and the ability to upgrade network infrastructure without downtime applies to downloading security patches as well as integrating tools into the production environment.
Colby said, "Imagine a device the size of a house. One of our newest tools is worth $100 million, and there's a lot of complexity involved in getting a tool of that size, and after that I have to connect it so that it can communicate with other systems within our infrastructure, and [deploying SDN] has brought the tool to the ground much faster and with improved quality. We're also able to protect it at the level we need to protect it without missing something."
In a whitepaper on the move to SDN, Intel wrote, "It is clear that we need to move to an infrastructure that better supports automation, provides more flexible and dynamic security features, and reduces the overall impact when planned or unplanned changes occur. The networking industry has been moving toward SDN over the past decade, and Intel Manufacturing has been deploying Cisco Application-Centric Infrastructure (ACI) in factory-local data centers since 2018, gaining experience with the system and maturing the market."
IDC analyst Paul Hughes said, "The use of cellular and WiFi connectivity on the factory floor is enabling these manufacturers to improve visibility, performance, throughput, and even maintenance. For any industry, software-defined networking brings additional scale and on-demand connectivity to connected machines (Industrial IoT) today."
As more and more semiconductor manufacturing takes off in the U.S., the use of SDN is also becoming one of the key steps in digital transformation, where semiconductor manufacturers can collect, manage and use data comprehensively from the factory floor to the outside. Hughes said its latest survey showed that 41 percent of manufacturers cited the flexibility to add/change bandwidth capacity in near real-time as the top reason for using SDN/SD-WAN.
Intel has deployed SDN in approximately 15 percent of its facilities to date and will continue to migrate existing Ethernet-based facilities to SDN, with additional deployments planned in Arizona, Ohio, New Mexico, Israel, Malaysia, Italy and Germany in the coming years.

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