Intel Announces Intent to Purchase Colorado Springs Manufacturing Facility; Company Plans To Begin Production by Year End - Company Business and Marketing

Edge: Work-Group Computing Report, Feb 7, 2000

Intel Corporation Wednesday announced it has signed a letter of intent with Rockwell International Corporation to purchase a wafer fabrication facility (fab) located in Colorado Springs, Colo. The purchase will add significant manufacturing capacity for Intel in the short term.

"This facility will give us the ability to rapidly add more manufacturing capacity in order to address our customers' growing demand for a wide variety of our products," said Mike Splinter, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's Technology and Manufacturing Group. "Colorado Springs is an excellent environment for a new Intel facility. It has an excellent work force and educational systems, along with a good reputation for working closely with businesses."

Assuming a definitive agreement is reached, and the timely completion of due diligence along with the necessary permit process, the company expects to begin manufacturing flash memory in Colorado Springs by late this year.

The Colorado Springs facility, which is currently vacant, consists of two wafer fabs and several support buildings. The first fab, a 268,000 square foot manufacturing and support facility, was built in the early 1980s and will be converted into a sort and test facility.

The second wafer fab was built in 1996 but never utilized. It is a 676,000 square foot facility with 120,000 square feet of cleanroom that will be equipped to manufacture flash memory and logic components used in a wide variety of communications, networking and computer equipment. Intel plans to install its 0.18-micron manufacturing technology in the fab, using 200 mm (eight inch) wafers. A micron is approximately 1/100th the width of a typical human hair.

Intel will begin construction and installation of manufacturing equipment at the site in the near future. The company expects to invest $1.5 billion at the location. When fully operational, the fab will result in the creation of more than a thousand new jobs in Colorado Springs.

Intel, the world's largest chip maker, is also a leading manufacturer of computer, networking and communications products. Additional information is available at www.intel.com.