Intel to spend $5 billion on new 14nm fab in Arizona, create 4,000 new jobs this year

Intel to Invest More than $5 Billion to Build New Factory in Arizona

NEWS HIGHLIGHTS

* Intel is building a new $5 billion-plus factory in Arizona.
* Fab 42 will be the most advanced, high-volume semiconductor manufacturing facility in the world.
* New fab will create thousands of construction and permanent manufacturing jobs at Intel's Arizona site.

CHANDLER, Ariz., Feb. 18, 2011 – Intel Corporation today announced plans to invest more than $5 billion to build a new chip manufacturing facility at its site in Chandler, Ariz. The announcement was made by Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini during a visit by President Barack Obama at an Intel facility in Hillsboro, Ore.

The new Arizona factory, designated Fab 42, will be the most advanced, high-volume semiconductor manufacturing facility in the world. Construction of the new fab is expected to begin in the middle of this year and is expected to be completed in 2013.

"The investment positions our manufacturing network for future growth," said Brian Krzanich, senior vice president and general manager, Manufacturing and Supply Chain. "This fab will begin operations on a process that will allow us to create transistors with a minimum feature size of 14 nanometers. For Intel, manufacturing serves as the underpinning for our business and allows us to provide customers and consumers with leading-edge products in high volume. The unmatched scope and scale of our investments in manufacturing help Intel maintain industry leadership and drives innovation."

While more than three-fourths of Intel's sales come from outside of the United States, Intel manufactures three-fourths of its microprocessors in the United States. The addition of this new fab will increase the company's American manufacturing capability significantly.

Building the new fab on the leading-edge 14-nanometer process enables Intel to manufacture more powerful and efficient computer chips. The nanometer specification refers to the minimum dimensions of transistor technology. A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter or the size one ninety-thousandth the width of an average human hair.

"The products based on these leading-edge chips will give consumers unprecedented levels of performance and power efficiency across a range of computing devices from high-end servers to ultra-sleek portable devices," said Krzanich.

Fab 42 will be built as a 300mm factory, which refers to the size of the wafers that contain the computer chips. The project will create thousands of construction and permanent manufacturing jobs at Intel's Arizona site.

About Intel
Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) is a world leader in computing innovation. The company designs and builds the essential technologies that serve as the foundation for the world's computing devices. Additional information about Intel is available at newsroom.intel.com and blogs.intel.com.

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Johnny Chung Lee makes DIY telepresence bot out of an iRobot Create and a netbook

Most of us don't have $15,000 to drop on an Anybot, even though having one around would be nice in the event we don't feel like leaving the house to get some coffee. To help those of us with more humble means, our old friend Johnny Chung Lee (of Wiimote hacking and Kinect dev team fame) has utilized his prodigious DIY talents to create a video chat robot for the relatively paltry sum of $500. Using an iRobot Create ($250), a netbook with Skype ($250), a cable to connect the two, and some control software he wrote himself, Mr. Lee built a digital surrogate on the cheap. Johnny isn't the first person to so leverage iRobot's hacking platform, but he added a stand on top of the robot to get the PC closer to human height, attached a fish-eye lens to the webcam for better remote viewing, and even did some re-wiring to allow the netbook to charge via the Create's base station. The code and how-to instructions are up on his blog, so hit the source link if you're feeling up to making one yourself. Seems like Johnny Lee's putting that Google 20 percent time to good use thus far -- keep 'em coming. Check the video of this latest creation after the break.