Project Architects: David Bartlett Pierre Botschi Mike Davies Sally Eaton Michael Elkan Marco Goldschmied Kunimi Hayashi Tim Inskip Julia Marks Peter McMunn Richard Rogers John Young
Financial Times Architecture at Work Award Commendation 1983
Constructa-Preis for Overall Excellence in the Field of Architecture 1986
The Inmos microprocessor factory, also known as the Inmos factory, previously known as Newport Wafer Fab,[2] now known as Nexperia Newport,[3] is a semiconductor fabrication plant for Inmos built in Newport, Wales, UK in 1980. It has gone through numerous changes in ownership. Since July 2021, the factory has been owned by Nexperia. In November 2022, Chinese state-owned Dutch-headquartered Nexperia was asked to divest 86% of its ownership, and a year later was sold to Vishay Intertechnology.
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,[14] 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".[2] In December 2022, it was announced Nexperia had engaged New York law firm, Akin Gump to act on their behalf in their application for a judicial review of the UK government’s decision.[15] Nexperia agreed to sell the facility to Vishay Intertechnology for $177 million in November 2023.[16]
History of design and construction
The former Inmos microprocessor factory in 2007 when it was owned by International Rectifier
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.[17] Richard Rogers until then was known for designing the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Lloyd's building 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.[18]
The technical requirements were that it would house controlled conditions for the production of electronic microchips, a service area for various offices and a staff canteen, all under one roof.[17] 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 8,900 square metres (96,000 sq ft) single-storey building was designed to be fabricated off-site, and assembled on the Newport site.[18]
The building is divided into clean and "dirty" areas. The cleanroom being for microchip production and the dirty area for all others services in the building. The building has a central spine which is 7.2 metres (24 ft) wide and 106 m (348 ft) from which all the services and production area emanates from eight bays with the potential to increase this to 20 bays.[17][19] Suspended beams span 40m from the central spine with masts along the length of the building allowing for a post-free area,[20][21] and so providing a flexible interior and the possibility of large work areas.[20]Reyner Banham, the architectural critic and writer, said of the Inmos factory that it was "the first really challenging building of the 1980s."[22]
Construction began in 1980 and was completed by 1982.[20]
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