Intel Plans $5 Billion In Capital Spending
(04/06/98; 4:30 p.m. EST)
By Andy Patrizio, TechWeb
The price of competition is expensive for Intel, which plans to spend about $5 billion this year on capital expenses, such as upgrades to its existing fabrication facilities plug building new ones.
While on a tour of Asia last week, president and chief operating officer Craig Barrett said more than $1 billion will be spent on its existing facilities in China, Malaysia, and the Philippines, and that's just to keep them up and running.
"It's in line with what we've spent historically in that region," said Robert Manette, an Intel spokesman.
Other plants are also due for facelifts, including two fabs in Arizona and one in Ireland that are being upgraded. Many of the upgrades are to convert central processing unit manufacturing from the .35-micron die to .25 micron, the die size for Pentium II CPUs above 333 MHz, Manetta said.
Intel is also building new facilities in Ireland, Portland, Ore., Israel, and Fort Worth, Texas.
By moving to the smaller die, Intel is trying to increase manufacturing efficiency while lowering costs, said Mario Morales, director of semiconductor research for International Data Corp., in Mountain View, Calif. "They need to continue driving technology bringing price points down to something more realistic," he said. |
