Intel Corp (INTC)

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Intel to open newest Hillsboro facility
Aliza Earnshaw

Intel Corp., the Santa Clara, Calif.-headquartered chip giant, will open its newest and most advanced development "fab," or fabrication facility, this weekend in Hillsboro.

Dedication ceremonies on April 26 will feature remarks from Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski and Sunlin Chou, Intel senior vice president and general manager of technology and manufacturing.



Intel's latest Hillsboro fab cost $2 billion, and, at almost 975,000 square feet, could park three Boeing 747 aircraft. It is Intel's largest building in Oregon.



The new fab will manufacture chips from 300-millimeter wafers, and will initially develop chips at the 65-nanometer geometry. This places Intel "a generation ahead of the competition," according to Intel Oregon representative Bill MacKenzie.



The process used for most of Intel's chips today is 0.13 micron, or 130 nanometers. Intel has been developing 90-nanometer processes, and chip manufacturing at this new geometry will begin later this year. But as is typical for Intel, even as the company begins to roll out processors with the increased capacity that 90-nanometer geometry yields, it will be developing the processes necessary to manufacture chips with the still-higher capacities that 65-nanometer technology will deliver.

Intel now has 14,500 employees in Oregon, down from about 15,000 in mid-2002, and approximately 16,000 at the beginning of 2001. The Oregon site is Intel's largest and most complex site in the world, and much of Intel's most core research and development is done in Oregon.