Eamonn Sinnott, Intel Ireland's general manager
Intel president Paul Ottelini has confirmed that Intel Ireland’s Leixlip plant is one of three global sites that has been chosen to produce its future 14 nanometer (nm) chips.
Ottelini revealed the company’s chip plans at Intel’s annual investor meeting in Santa Clara in California two weeks ago.
The other two sites that have been chosen to produce the 14nm chips are Intel’s Oregon and Arizona plants.
The future of chipzilla
In California Ottelini also gave investors a glimpse of Intel’s roadmap for innovating from its 22nm process to its current development of 14nm process and its aim to create 10nm, 7nm and 5nm chips beyond 2015.
Hexus.net got its hands on a slide from the California meeting, as shown here.
Intel and innovation in Ireland
It was back in early 2011 that Intel revealed its plans to begin a substantial new US$500m construction project at is Leixlip campus in Co Kildare, where it already employs around 4,000 people. The new build, a redevelopment of the former Fab 14 operation at Leixlip, is to develop the next-generation facilities to handle future products.
At the time Intel said that the project would create 200 high-level technology jobs, as well as 850 construction jobs.
“We are building facilities to handle the manufacture of products that haven’t even been invented yet,” said Intel Ireland’s general manager Eamonn Sinnott last year. He described the construction site as one of the largest in Ireland.
“It is easily the largest construction site in the entire country, if not the only one. That US$500m investment sets us up for the next 20 years and puts us in pole position on what’s going to be happening in computing,” said Sinnott.
Intel’s Leixlip Fab 24 facility currently processes 300mm wafers on both 90nm and 65nm process technologies.
