Santa Clara – Intel Corp. will resume construction on Fab 24 in Leixlip, County Kildare, Ireland. The $2 billion manufacturing facility will produce advanced semiconductor components on 300mm wafers and will initially use 90nm process technology.

The new fab will contain 160,000-square-feet of cleanroom with slightly more than 1 million-square-feet of space for the total facility. Operations are expected to begin in the first half of 2004. When the new facility is completed the company will have four 300mm fabs in operation.

The new fab will also incorporate Intel’s recently disclosed 90nm process technology. In March the company announced that Intel researchers had built the world’s smallest SRAM memory cell using this new technology.

Construction on Fab 24 was originally begun in June 2000 but was halted during last year’s worldwide economic downturn.

When completed in 2004, the fab will employ a staff of 1,000. There are currently 3,150 Intel employees in Leixlip. During construction, Fab 24 will be the largest single construction project in Ireland. Additionally, Intel’s cumulative investment in manufacturing facilities in Ireland at the end of 2004 will total more than $5 billion