HUDSON, MA — With a total investment of $1 billion, Intel is planning to expand its operations at Fab 17, which is located in Hudson, MA. At that facility, the chipmaker hopes to finish a fourth module/cleanroom and purchase equipment with the money.

The fourth module is expected to cost some $250 million to complete and, when completed, the facility will have a total of 120,000 sq. ft. of cleanroom space. With the remaining $750 million, Intel will upgrade its tooling and equipment to accommodate 0.13-micron process technologies. At the Hudson plant Intel manufactures logic chips, including: Celeron, Pentium III and StrongARM, with potential plans to produce Pentium 4 chips.

“In the 2H01 we will spend money on 0.13 equipment, and expect [to ship] the first products using 0.13 micron in late 2H01,” said Intel corporate spokesman Charles Mulloy. Intel broke the news of the Fab 17 expansion just days after it announced that its Irish facility would be a 300mm fab instead of the planned 200mm. Fab 24 is located in Leixlip, Ireland. When Fab 24 was slated for 200mm Intel expected to go online during the 2H01, that date has now been pushed back to 2H02.

The move to 300mm in Ireland was surprising to many industry experts, but Intel believes, in the long run it will allow them to double its production and reduce costs by 30 percent. “There was some panic last week when we said we’d decreased the amount of 200mm equipment we’d be buying, but at Fab 22 & 17 we are still producing 200mm,” Mulloy said.

On the 300mm front, Intel is pushing forward and expects to run first silicon through its development facility, located in Oregon, at the beginning of 2001.

In other 300mm news, Infineon Technologies, Munich, Germany, said it will equip its Richmond, VA, facility with 300mm equipment. The facility, formerly known as White Oak Semiconductor, will begin operations at the end of the 1Q02.

-Meg Villeneuve