Chandler's Intel plant nears completion

Intel Corp.’s $3 billion factory in south Chandler designed to produce the company’s latest microprocessors is about ready for prime time.

After more than two years of construction, the company is planning an official grand opening this fall, although an exact date has not been set. Commercial production of microprocessors — complex chips that run servers and personal computers — is expected to begin by the end of the year.

Construction has been completed on the exterior of the building, and crews are in the process of installing chip-production equipment and finishing up interior work, said construction manager Preston McDaniel.

“We still have 500 to 600 craft workers doing that, but the building itself is complete,” he said. “We’re just wrapping up contracts.”

Designated as Fab 32, the 1-million-square-foot factory will be a key for Intel’s production of its next-generation line of microprocessors, code-named “Penryn,” which have transistors 45 nanometers in size.

The factory is the first commercial fab built by Intel that can produce transistors that small.

By comparison, more that 2,000 of them would fit across the width of a human hair.

Hundreds of millions of those microscopic transistors will be inside the next generation of Intel microprocessors, improving the speed and performance of future personal computers over the current generation using 65 nanometer microprocessors.

To produce such tiny circuits requires use of new materials to build the transistors, the company said. The new materials reduce the amount of electrical leakage from the transistors, which can increase power consumption and cause excessive heating.

They also will ensure that Moore’s Law will continue into the next decade, the company said. Moore’s Law, named for Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, postulates that the number of transistors on a microchip will double every two years — a feat made possible by continued miniaturization.

“The implementation of (new) materials marks the biggest change in transistor technology since ... the late 1960s,” Moore said.

Intel, locked in fierce competition with Advanced Micro Devices for technological leadership in microprocessors, has not released detailed information about the materials, saying they are proprietary secrets. Also the company is strictly limiting access to its new fab and has not released any photographs of its interior.

FIRST OF ITS KIND

The Chandler factory, the third at Intel’s Ocotillo campus, is a near-replica to a development fab built by the company in Hillsboro, Ore., McDaniel said. The Oregon factory was built primarily for test purposes. Thus, the Chandler fab, which will provide about 1,000 jobs, is not the company’s first 45 nanometer plant, but it is the first that will be engaged in high-volume production, he said.

“This is the (cutting) edge,” he said.

Reducing the size of the transistors is requiring more sophisticated air-handling equipment for the new factory’s clean rooms to ensure that airborne contaminants don’t interfere with the circuitry.

“As we push the envelope, the cleanliness standards become tighter,” McDaniel said. “Now we’re looking at the makeup of the air at the molecular level.”

The fab also was designed with the flexibility to be converted in the future to the next technology on the horizon — 32 nanometers, he said.

But as semiconductor technology continues to advance, some things haven’t changed, he said.

“There will still be guys and gals in bunny suits.”

LARGER WAFERS

Another feature of the new fab is its capacity to make microchips on 12-inch-diameter silicon wafers. Only five other Intel plants can do that, including Fab 12, also located at the Ocotillo complex, which was converted to the larger-size wafers in a $2 billion upgrade completed in late 2005.

The more common industry standard is to use 8-inch wafers, said Intel spokeswoman Dawn Jones.

The larger wafer provides 225 percent more surface area than 8-inch wafers, allowing the manufacturer to put more individual chips on a wafer and greatly reducing the cost per chip, she said.

“The larger wafers also diminishes the overall use of resources, requiring 40 percent less energy and water for each chip produced,” she said.

CONSTRUCTION CHALLENGES

Intel used innovative construction techniques for Fab 32 to increase safety for construction workers. Instead of lifting steel beams piece by piece and having iron workers welding and bolting the beams in place high in the air, steel structures were assembled on the ground and then lifted into place in large sections by one of the world’s largest cranes, McDaniel said.

That and other safety precautions caused the injury rate among Fab 32 construction workers to be about one-tenth the industry average, McDaniel said.

The safety program helped recruit workers at a time when the company faced heavy competition for skilled craftsmen from the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, he said.

“A lot of the oil refineries in the South that got damaged had a lot of pull on craft workers,” he said. “They were willing to pay more, so we had to do some other things to attract workers. Providing a safe work environment was one of them.”

Despite the tight labor market, McDaniel said the project was completed on time and within the budget.

MORE FABS POSSIBLE

The latest expansion may not be the last at the Ocotillo campus, located at Dobson and Ocotillo roads. The master plan provides room for two additional factories at the 700-acre site. But no further expansion is planned currently, Jones said.

Also there are no current plans to modernize the existing Fab 22 at the site, as was done with Fab 12, she said.

Any future decision on Chandler projects would depend on Arizona remaining competitive with other locations in infrastructure, workforce capacity and economic factors, she said.

“Although we are continually evaluating our options, there are no decisions pending,” Jones said.

Intel in Arizona

1979: Intel Corp. starts its Arizona operations in Deer Valley

1980: Fab 6 opens at 5000 W. Chandler Blvd. in Chandler, the company’s first facility in the East Valley

1996: Company opens $1 billion Fab 12 at the Ocotillo campus, 4500 S. Dobson Road in Chandler

2000: Fab 6 is decommissioned, but company continues to use the clean room space for research and development

2001: $2 billion Fab 22 opens at the Ocotillo campus

2005: Fab 12 is upgraded in $2 billion project late

2007: $3 billion Fab 32 opens at Ocotillo campus