The Inmos microprocessor factory, also known as the Inmos factory or Newport Wafer Fab is a

semiconductor fabrication plant In the microelectronics industry, a semiconductor fabrication plant (commonly called a fab; sometimes foundry) is a factory where devices such as integrated circuits are manufactured. Fabs require many expensive devices to function. Estimate ...

for Inmos built in Newport,

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...

, UK in 1980. It has gone through numerous changes in ownership. Since July 2021, the factory has been owned by

Nexperia Nexperia is a semiconductor manufacturer headquartered in Nijmegen, the Netherlands.It is a subsidiary of the partially state-owned Chinese company Wingtech Technology. It has front-end factories in Hamburg, Germany and Greater Manchester, Eng ...

. In November 2022, Chinese-owned Dutch-headquartered Nexperia was asked to divest 86% of its ownership. The architects of the award-winning high-tech building were the

Richard Rogers Partnership RSHP is a British architectural firm, founded in 1977 and previously known as the Richard Rogers Partnership which became Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners. in 2007. The firm rebranded from Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners to simply RSHP on 30 Jun ...

and the factory was the first building in Wales which Richard Rogers designed.

Ownership

The building was originally commissioned by Inmos, but by July 1984

Thorn EMI Thorn(s) or The Thorn(s) may refer to: Botany * Thorns, spines, and prickles, sharp structures on plants * ''Crataegus monogyna'', or common hawthorn, a plant species Comics and literature * Rose and Thorn, the two personalities of two DC Comi ...

had taken over Inmos. In March 1989, Thorn EMI sold Inmos to SGS-Thomson Microelectronics NV. In 1999, a management buyout took over the factory, renaming the business, ''European Semiconductor Manufacturing Limited''. In March 2002, the factory was sold to

International Rectifier International Rectifier was an American power management technology company manufacturing analog and mixed-signal ICs, advanced circuit devices, integrated power systems, and high-performance integrated components for computing. On 13 January 20 ...

Company (GB) Limited. In January 2015 it was acquired by

Infineon Technologies Infineon Technologies AG is a German semiconductor manufacturer founded in 1999, when the semiconductor operations of the former parent company Siemens AG were spun off. Infineon has about 50,280 employees and is one of the ten largest semicon ...

, under its subsidiary company IR Newport Ltd. In September 2017, Infineon sold the site to ''Neptune 6 Limited'', under its subsidiary company of ''Newport Wafer Fab Limited''. In July 2021 the site was sold to Chinese-owned Dutch-headquartered

, who also have plants in

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

and

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

. On 17 November 2022, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy of the British government ordered Nexperia to divest 86% of its ownership interest in Nexperia Newport Limited (NNL, formerly Newport Wafer Fab) for national security reasons, which Nexperia has vowed to appeal. Nexperia's UK manager said they rescued an investment-starved company from collapse, ..repaid taxpayer loans, secured jobs, wages, bonuses and pensions, and agreed to spend more than £80 million on equipment upgrades since early 2021".

History of design and construction

Inmos Limited commissioned the Richard Rogers Partnership, now known as Rogers Stirk Harbour & Partners, to design its UK microprocessor manufacturing facility at Newport. The design criterion was for a fast construction, so that it was ready for operation within one year of starting. Richard Rogers until then was known for designing the

Centre Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...

in Paris and the

Lloyd's building The Lloyd's building (sometimes known as the Inside-Out Building) is the home of the insurance institution Lloyd's of London. It is located on the former site of East India House in Lime Street, in London's main financial district, the City of ...

in London. The main contractor for the construction of the building was Laing Construction, the structural engineers were Anthony Hunt Associates, the services engineers were YRM Engineers and the quantity surveyors were GA Hanscomb Partnership. The technical requirements were that it would house controlled conditions for the production of electronic

microchips An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit (also referred to as an IC, a chip, or a microchip) is a set of electronic circuits on one small flat piece (or "chip") of semiconductor material, usually silicon. Large numbers of tiny M ...

, a service area for various offices and a staff canteen, all under one roof. The Inmos factory was designed to be a model factory that could be constructed in a variety of locations. The speed of the design process and construction time of the building were critical. The single-storey building was designed to be fabricated off-site, and assembled on the Newport site. The building is divided into clean and "dirty" areas. The

cleanroom A cleanroom or clean room is an engineered space, which maintains a very low concentration of airborne particulates. It is well isolated, well-controlled from contamination, and actively cleansed. Such rooms are commonly needed for scientif ...

being for microchip production and the dirty area for all others services in the building. The building has a central spine which is wide and from which all the services and production area emanates from eight bays with the potential to increase this to 20 bays. Suspended beams span 40m from the central spine with masts along the length of the building allowing for a post-free area, and so providing a flexible interior and the possibility of large work areas.

Reyner Banham Peter Reyner Banham Hon. FRIBA (2 March 1922 – 19 March 1988) was an English architectural critic and writer best known for his theoretical treatise ''Theory and Design in the First Machine Age'' (1960) and for his 1971 book ''Los Angeles: Th ...

, the architectural critic and writer, said of the Inmos factory that it was "the first really challenging building of the 1980s." Construction began in 1980 and was completed by 1982.

Notes

External links

Inmos microprocessor factory on the Rogers Stirk Harbour & Partners website
* ttps://www.archdaily.com/406019/ad-classics-inmos-microprocessor-factory-richard-rogers-partnership AD Classics: Inmos Microprocessor Factory / Richard Rogers Partnership link at

ArchDaily ArchDaily is a weblog covering architectural news, projects, products, events, interviews and competitions, opinion pieces, among others, catering to architects, designers and other interested parties. Description ArchDaily is one of the mo ...

{{City of Newport Buildings and structures in Newport, Wales Commercial buildings completed in 1982 Richard Rogers buildings 1982 establishments in Wales