Microchip Shortage DowntimeFord actually tried it once in the 1990s ! It was call Ford Microelectronic and it was in Colorado Springs, which was supposed to be the next "silicon valley" at the time.
Rperez is correct. It takes billions to go from "green field" site to a high volume chip manufacturing. Ford Micro was going to do designed for automotive application and low volume production for ord Aerospace. Aerospace never flourished (they were betting on government defense contracts that never happened). Ford Micro did design 2 chips in cooperation with Intel, the 8063 (EEC-IV.5) and 8065 (EEC-V). The 8063 was a classic hardware guys not truly understanding what the software guys wanted/needed. 8065 was "too little, too late". Also Intel did NOT want to be in a design business that did not guarantee them 100% of the chip manufacturing (Motorola built some of the 8065 chips).
Research on what became PTEC was started even before EEC-V was in full production. Intel offered another 16 bit chip even though Ford clearly stated they wanted 32 bit. When it became clear that Intel was not going to get the contract for the CPU, they refused to bid on the 32 bit Flash chip (Intel was the largest manufacturer of Flash back then. They saw "no future" for 32 bit Flash.)
By the time PTEC was in full production, automotive no longer was "the tail that wagged the dog of the IC industry !" Cell phones and other consumer devices were the high volume applications and those customers were NOT trying to beat them down on price.Fri, 05 Feb 2021 15:13:32 +0000
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