Intel envisions leading-edge chip production to begin at Fab 24-2, its new facility in Ireland, by 2006

Intel envisions leading-edge chip production to begin at Fab 24-2, its new facility in Ireland, by 2006. The company says it has had a manufacturing presence there since 1989 and has spent about $6 billion on its operations in the country. "We are diversifying out of California," then CEO Craig Barrett said at Gartner's IT Expo last fall. l says it will spend an additional $2 billion on its operations in Ireland, which will result in more manufacturing space and an upgrade to increasingly sophisticated fabrication processes. The company has been vocal about the problems of operating a high tech business in the U.S. versus the benefits of going offshore. Intel worked closely with the Irish Development Authority to wrap up plans for a major upgrade to its plant. The investment will pay for the construction of another fabrication facility called "Fab 24-2" (the existing one is known as "Fab 24"), which will add 60,000 square feet of manufacturing space to the company's Ireland campus. It will produce chips using the 65-nanometer process. Intel's investment is partly based on the grants and incentives it receives from the Irish government. The company plans to use part of its 2004 capital expenditures, projected to be in the range of $3.6 billion to $4 billion, to cover the early stages of the Fab 24-2 project. Fab 24, the just-finished facility, is ready to begin producing chips. It is the first high volume 300-millimeter facility in Europe -- one of the world's most advanced semiconductor factories.