Lost in the whirlwind of news Tuesday morning that Intel will spend $7 billion over the next two years to retrofit foundries in the U.S. for advanced manufacturing is some equally important news.
Paul Otellini announced the company's $7 billion investment Tuesday in Washington, DC
The company claims it is ahead of schedule with its new production technique, called 32-nanometer manufacturing – putting more pressure on rival Advanced Micro Devices.
In an explanation of its investment, Intel said the “health” of the manufacturing process and of its chip design enable the company to accelerate the start of manufacturing to the fourth quarter of 2009. The start had been expected next year.
With 32nm manufacturing gear, chip circuitry can be made as small as a millionth of an inch in width.
The first chip on the line will be Westmere, a revised version of the Nehalem micro-architecture Intel is presently using to produce its Core 2 chips with its present 45nm production.
Westmere will come with up to six cores, or computing engines, and integrated graphics processing. The smaller circuitry allows a finished chip to either use less power or run faster.
AMD has recently begun 45-nm production.
Intel said the $7 billion would go to outfit plants in Oregon, New Mexico and Arizona.
