Intel To Build Second 1.1M Square Foot Fab in Oregon

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Intel has confirmed a massive expansion of its chip production site in Hillsboro, Oregon.

The company is building a twin of the $3 billion D1X factory that was announced about two years ago and it's scheduled to be up and running and producing 14 nm processors in 2013.

The new factory will also cover 1.1 billion square feet of floor space and is built to accommodate future lithography technology such as EUV, which will have chip production equipment that is multiple stories high. D1X and its twin will stand 122 feet tall. Intel also said that it is retrofitting its Fab20 in Hillsboro, which was previously closed down.

Given the current macro-economic environment, there may be concerns as to whether Intel can justify spending that much money on extra production capacity. However, investing in fabs and future manufacturing is part of the company history that has given it a position of chip production leadership. There are not many standalone chip makers left that can afford to build production fabs on this massive scale and the fact that Intel's investment comes at this time, is an important and surely motivating sign that Intel is betting on growth for chips - not just smartphone and tablet chips.

The announcement is also a sure sign that Intel will be following through with its aggressive roadmap.

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Wolfgang Gruener
37 Comments Comment from the forums
  • wanderer11
    The article says 1.1 billion sq ft, but the title says 1.1 million sq ft. Surely, million is correct isn't it?
    Reply
  • spookie
    Please move away from Square Foot, meters are sooo much better(and is doesn't sound absurdly big!)
    Reply
  • ekho
    and AMD is almost Fabless!
    So we have to compare like 32nm chips with latencies for their L3 caches and not-so-well built silicons
    with 22nm intel chips with I dont know;3D transistors or something...

    Reply
  • greghome
    spookiePlease move away from Square Foot, meters are sooo much better(and is doesn't sound absurdly big!)America is still the only industrialise country that doesn't use the metric system. :(
    For that, I congratulate the American people
    Reply
  • vaughn2k
    This is good for the Americans... build more jobs... I wish Apple also does this, move away from Foxconn, and build manufacturing plants in the US soil to build more jobs..
    Reply
  • Camikazi
    spookiePlease move away from Square Foot, meters are sooo much better(and is doesn't sound absurdly big!)What is it with people and wanting everyone to be the same? Our system works leave it alone, there are conversions to and from both systems no reason for everything to be identical.
    Reply
  • jaquith
    Here's an original article - http://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/index.ssf/2012/10/intel_makes_a_bet_on_oregon_an.html

    Yes, it's a $3 Billion dollar project for a 1.1 million square feet building. Hey, it's in the US we use SqFt; 102,193 M^2.

    Frankly, I wish they'd quit manufacturing offshore and close facilities China, Costa Rica, Malaysia, Israel, Ireland, India, Russia and Vietnam or other non-US Countries "Territories" (Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, or Virgin Islands.)
    Reply
  • sheepsnowadays
    ^^ Your obviously have not calculated ANYTHING that has to do with science to realize that yes metric is the way to go.
    Reply
  • ojas
    I think these fabs (D1X and this one) will be used for 10nm as well, since they've called it D1X, where X=4,1.

    Also, i would assume that they'll make a lot more 14nm chips than the 22nm ones they're making at the moment.
    Reply
  • freggo
    jaquith...Frankly, I wish they'd quit manufacturing offshore and close facilities China, Costa Rica, Malaysia, Israel, Ireland, India, Russia and Vietnam or other non-US Countries.
    "other non-US Countries." ???
    Which are then the other "US countries" :-)
    Reply