I'd call this an indirect plug from Intel's analyst meeting:
biz.yahoo.com
. . .
'HUMANS BRING DEFECTS'
Intel, which has a dozen or so multibillion-dollar chip plants across the globe, plans to unveil this quarter, and on track, its much-ballyhooed Pentium 4 that will run at more than 1.4 gigahertz, said Otellini. That speed will rise to 2 gigahertz by September 2001. He added that Pentium 4 sales will top Pentium III sales early in 2002, but would like that to happen sooner because those chips are more profitable.
Also, with the move to larger, dinner-plate-sized silicon wafers from the current salad-plate-sized ones, Intel plans to upgrade its factories and make them even more automated than they are now. The semiconductor industry typically moves to larger wafers roughly every 10 years, so as Intel rolls over to the larger wafers and gear needed to handle them, it's an opportunity to rebuild things from the ground up.
As Intel upgrades its plants -- which use what it calls its ``copy exactly method,'' meaning every chip plant is built in exactly the same way -- it will move to a fully automated material handling system, integrated material scheduling and movement, Web-enabled support systems and remote diagnostic capacity, said Michael Splinter, who runs Intel's chip plants.
The more automated plants also mean fewer people. And fewer people means fewer errors, Splinter said.
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