Ireland's An Bord Pleanála has given Intel the necessary permission for a new chip plant in County Kildare, just outside Ireland's capital city of Dublin. The Leixlip, Kildare campus is just one location where Intel plans to produce its next gen 14nm microprocessors.
Intel first announced plans to start a new $500 million construction project at its Leixlip technology campus in January of 2011. The plan was to upgrade Intel's Fab 14 facility in Leixlip. At the time, the project promised to create 850 construction jobs as well as 200 high level jobs on the Leixlip campus when all was said and done. SiliconRepublic reports that, last week, An Bord Pleanála granted Intel the planning permission to go ahead with the redevelopment. However, the estimates of how many jobs this new facility will create have risen considerably, as has the cost of the investment from Intel.
According to SiliconRepublic, the $4 billion plant will require a total of 3,500 construction workers over a period of two years and 800 permanent workers once completed. The new facility will include a new semiconductor wafer fabrication facility measuring 244,000 square meters (this will be housed inside the existing manufacturing complex), a three-storey main fabrication facility with a floor area of 101,000 sq metres, and several other facility support buildings for waste and chemical storage, water treatment, and more.
