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Intel On A Building Spree
Anonymous Cowherd writes "Intel will build two new facilities - a new chip plant and a new wafer plant. The new chip plant will be built in Kiryat Gat, Israel, continuing Intel's 30 years operation in the country. Intel already owns several facilities in Israel, both for R&D and for manufacturing. Previous developments of Intel Israel are the 8088 processor, MMX and the Centrino mobile platform. The new wafer plant will be built in an existing facility at Chandler, Arizona, and will feature 45nm technology - 1/1,333th the width of a human hair. The technology is two generations ahead of the current 90nm. Intel's Arizona operation includes production of the Pentium processor family and related chipsets."
2. It isn't very easy to "upgrade" a semiconductor fab to latest tech, building a new one might actually be easier as you can make the buildings fit the purpose perfectly...
I have a really elegant proof for Fermat's last theorem. If this sig was only a bit longer...
They built a huge plan in Colorado right before the Tech Crash. The the crash came they abandoned the plant (the most expensive building ever in the state). Is this building unusable? It was supposed to be a "nest generation" chip plant after all!
Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration, which is why engineers sometimes smell really bad.
Maybe they'll actually finish these buildings, unlike the big development center they started in Austin and then left unfinished. A big, half-constructed building sitting in the middle of downtown for the last 5 years.
And the city council gave them millions in tax breaks to leave an eyesore downtown...
What I'd like to know is whos hair they use as this baseline, or is all human hair the same thickness?
I live down the street from a giant Intel plant in Hillsboro, Oregon. When the weather is cool and I feel like I need the extra exercise, I walk the dog around the perimeter. It is a touch under four miles round trip and has its own wetlands area where beaver, ospreys, and coyotes live.
Immediately across the street is some more Intel land. It has Intel no trespassing signs, but is . . . well, not vacant. It is a clover field. Sometimes you can see tractors plowing it up or harvesting the stuff. I guess Intel leases the land to a farmer.
Around two of the sides are great big walls of blackberry bushes. These are considered weeds out there, but produce great whopping crops of blackberries. I picked about three gallons last year, enough to make three pies and twelve jars of jam. Technically, one of the white SUV security vans could bust me for picking the berries, but it seems a shame just to leave them for the birds.
If you look at the Intel code names on their road maps, you'll see that they usually name their chips after rivers. Most of these rivers are in the western United States, but occasionally you'll see Israeli river names (Banias, for example). Grouping these names together, you can tell that Intel Israel usually works on low-power chips and integrated chipset features (SSE, Centrino, ...). That is, the heart of Intel cores is done in the U.S. They send their first generation designs to Israel for improvement and integration.
Intel, as well as numerous other chip makers, have had a long tradition of development in Israel. IBM, DEC (back when they existed), Freescale all have research centers in Israel. This is due to the large amount of English-speaking skilled engineers and their relatively low cost compared to US engineers. This is the first I've heard of actually making the chips there. Germany is usually the preferred site for fabbing in the European region.
The i8088 was developed in the US, the i8087 (the fp math coprocessor) was developed in Israel.
"In return ofcourse, Israel would get hi-tech jobs, supporting industries, and expertize. I wish our politicians would look into future and invest wisely as Israel did."
But our politicians did. Their financial aid to Israel indirectly allowed this *investment* to happen in the first place. So don't thank Israeli politicians for being saavy, thank the politician action committees allied to them that successfully lobby our Congress each year for monies.
Having stated that though, I'm sure there was some financial incentive that was indirectly bankrolled by the American taxpayer that led to Atari setting up shop in the Republic of Ireland back in the day. Dell now occupies said property to my knowledge.
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
someone just re/watched ghost busters ;)
hopefully they were thinking of this kinda mole
although googling for 'mole' on image search (have safe search Off) brought up a really disgusting picture that i'll leave to the reader to find on their own... it's sure to bring nightmares to just about anyone *shudders*
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
Your post just indicated chip fabs:
1) don't know what's in the water when they get it, that effects chip yields.
2) hence, don't know specifically what's changed about the water and it's chemical effects when they sell it back to the commuity, and how those changes effect thier yeilds.
3) You seem to assume they know enough about public health to assume it won't have an effect... hence the rationalization that the water must be good enough for public consumption but not good enough for chip fabrication....
Seems pretty dubious. Why don't they just recycle water for chip fab? The voodoo argument doesn't "carry much water" so to speak.
Considering cellular mechanics are far more complex and less well understood than chip design, and it's not chip designer's field of expertise, the reassurance isn't terribly reassuring.
Again, why don't they just recycle the water if it's so clean? Certainly they purify it upon taking it in, and you claim they purify it prior to sale to be even cleaner than when they bought it....
Something doesn't add up there.
Yeah, that's such a hilarious joke. Every exasperatingly possible permutation of it was used for years by would-be humorists in the trade rags. Further proof that business journal writers should stick to business and stay away from comedy.
In reality, JR Simplot invested in Micron at the urging of his youngest son Scott who, as Director of Planning and Information Technology for Simplot (the corporation), knew full well the difference between microchips and potato chips.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.