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Technology Stocks : Intel Corporation (INTC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Road Walker who wrote (94307)	12/19/1999 2:51:00 PM
From: Paul Engel	Respond to of 186894

John - re: "Sounds like a good thing to me, unless there is something in the Intel corporate culture that makes this approach very uncomfortable." Sounds good to me too ! Although, the AMDroids and Jerry Sanders are throwing a coniption fit ! Paul

To: Road Walker who wrote (94307)	12/19/1999 2:54:00 PM
From: Paul Engel	Respond to of 186894

John and Intel Investors - More Details on Intel's Upgrading of the Hudson, Mass Fab - acquired from DEC. Obviously, Intel is very intent on expanding its Production Capacity over the near term. Paul {==================================} Intel will spend $800 million to upgrade fab bought from DEC By Mark Hachman, Electronic Buyers' News Dec 17, 1999 (3:54 PM) URL: ebnews.com SANTA CLARA, Calif. ( ChipWire) -- Intel Corp. will spend nearly $800 million to upgrade its process specifications at the Hudson, Mass., fab it acquired from Digital Equipment Corp. two years ago. The upgrades will be completed over a period of two years as the Santa Clara microprocessor chip giant replaces the existing manufacturing equipment with the same machines used in its other fabs. Intel will add 450 employees to the fab's existing 1,200 work force to facilitate the transition. Intel plans to purchase 0.18-micron lithography equipment to replace DEC's 0.25-micron lines as part of its "copy exactly" strategy, according to an Intel spokesman. As part of that effort, Intel has attempted to replicate the equipment and processes used in each of its fabs to minimize production errors in the delicate lithography process. "By moving the Hudson fab to the 0.18-micron process, we will make all of our products much more competitive [in the marketplace]," an Intel spokesman said. If Intel had built the fab from the ground up, the copy exactly program would already have been implemented. However, Intel purchased the fab from Digital Equipment as part of its acquisition of Digital Semiconductors in 1997. The deal was approved by the government early in 1998. To minimize production errors, Intel continued to manufacture Digital's PCI bridge chips and other products on the Digital lines, including a contract foundry agreement with Compaq Computer Corp. in Houston to build the 64-bit Alpha processor. Compaq purchased Digital for $9 billion in 1998, and also acquired the Alpha design. The spokesman said Intel will retain some "legacy" process equipment to manufacture the Alpha chip, but declined to comment on other details, including the foundry's total potential capacity. In any event, observers believe the fab was underused. At the time of the acquisition, sources placed the Hudson facility's capacity utilization at 50% or less, although in March, Intel said production of its StrongARM embedded microprocessor, manufactured at the Hudson fab, would be limited by available manufacturing capacity by up to six months. Compaq has also been in talks with IBM Microelectronics to serve as an additional foundry partner for the Alpha, according to the company. Still, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. has been the primary manufacturer of the Alpha, and Samsung's subsidiary, Alpha Processor Inc., has stepped forward as the main proponent of the Alpha in the United States. On Monday, Compaq and Samsung announced an agreement to increase their investments in Alpha technologies and systems (see Dec. 13 story). Aside from the Alpha, Intel now intends to transfer Digital's products to its own manufacturing process, including the StrongARM embedded processor originally co-developed by Digital and ARM Ltd., as well as Intel's IXP network processor architecture, a StrongARM-based core. --Additional reporting by Computer Reseller News, a CMP Media Inc. publication .