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

To: Paul Engel who wrote (98129)	2/3/2000 3:30:00 AM
From: Paul Engel	Respond to of 186894

Intel Investors - More Details of Intel's New Colorado Sprins Wafer Fab The Fab is BIG : " Rockwell constructed a 676,000-sq.-ft. fab shell with a 120,000-sq.-ft. clean room in 1996, " "The Colorado Springs plant will experience the fastest ramp of any Intel facility from empty building shell to trial wafers, as the first 200-mm wafers are expected to come from the line before the end of this year. Only half the building is currently outfitted with rudimentary bays and power, but Intel plans to bring both halves of the building up as a single wafer line, equipping the entire plant with lithography and production equipment through the middle of the year. By the time the plant moves to full production, Intel anticipates a volume of between 25,000 and 30,000 wafer starts per month." Paul {========================================} Intel lays fab plans for the southwest By Loring Wirbel, EE Times Feb 2, 2000 (3:23 PM) URL: eetimes.com COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — One week after revealing plans to launch a 300-mm wafer fabrication facility in Chandler, Ariz., Intel Corp. finalized plans Wednesday (Feb. 2) to purchase a 1-million sq.-ft. fab complex in Colorado Springs from Rockwell International Corp. Intel plans to invest $1.5 billion to have 0.18-micron CMOS wafer starts at the site within calendar year 2000. The Colorado and Arizona fabs, together with its existing fab complex in Rio Rancho, N.M., will make Intel an unprecedented manufacturing powerhouse in the southwest United States. In Colorado Springs, Intel acquired two empty buildings on Garden of the Gods Road from Rockwell, which was selling the complex at an undisclosed price believed to be between $50 million and $60 million. Rockwell originally started operations in Colorado Springs when it acquired an existing 268,000-sq.-ft. fab from United Technologies Microelectronics Center in 1995. Intel will take over that smaller building, and use it as a test and sort facility. Rockwell constructed a 676,000-sq.-ft. fab shell with a 120,000-sq.-ft. clean room in 1996, but wrote off construction costs in 1998 when Rockwell Semiconductor spun off from Rockwell International, and elected to get its communications ICs from Asian foundries. Michael Splinter, senior vice president and general manager of the technology and manufacturing group at Intel, said that the ramp-up of the Colorado Springs facility likely will follow that of many Intel fabs: initial production will be flash memories, followed by microprocessors, along with embedded processors and peripheral logic. Rarely is an Intel fab dedicated to a single device or generation of processor, Splinter said, but rather follows an evolution over time. The Colorado Springs plant will experience the fastest ramp of any Intel facility from empty building shell to trial wafers, as the first 200-mm wafers are expected to come from the line before the end of this year. Only half the building is currently outfitted with rudimentary bays and power, but Intel plans to bring both halves of the building up as a single wafer line, equipping the entire plant with lithography and production equipment through the middle of the year. By the time the plant moves to full production, Intel anticipates a volume of between 25,000 and 30,000 wafer starts per month. Splinter said that only the Chandler plant will be used for testing 300-mm wafer production for the time being, while the fabs at Rio Rancho and Colorado Springs will remain at 200-mm sizes until the larger wafer process is production-ready. All U.S. Intel plants will take advantage of the new mask technology Intel is developing in conjunction with Dai Nippon Printing. Forward ever Expansion of Colorado Springs and Chandler will not mean any scaling back of resources in New Mexico, Splinter said. Some temporary slackening in hiring rates at Rio Rancho has been experienced while the site's Fab 9 was upgraded to 200-mm wafers, but Splinter said that Fabs 7, 9 and 11 in New Mexico will continue to grow. Intel will have to compete for an initial staff of 1,000 employees at its Colorado Springs plant, increasing to as many as 2,000 employees in succeeding years. Existing fabs in the city include large CMOS fabs owned by LSI Logic Corp. and Atmel Corp., and a smaller six-inch GaAs fab owned by Vitesse Semiconductor Corp. Splinter said he is confident Intel will be able to find the necessary workers in the Colorado Springs area, particularly because of the technology training programs instituted by University of Colorado at Colorado Springs and other institutions.