Intel to invest $7B in factory in Arizona, employ 3,000 | Hacker News Reader

Intel to invest $7B in factory in Arizona, employ 3,000

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78 pointsdeepanchor46 comments

Just to clarify: This factory is about halfway complete. Intel halted completing the Fab around 2 years ago. I wonder if any deals were made w.r.t tax breaks to entice Intel to finish the project.

EDIT: Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2088040/intel-puts-on-hold-fa...

The threat of protectionism from the current administration has motivated a few companies in the auto sector already. Might be somewhat tied to that.

Yeah, they had problems with the 14nm process and are delaying the 7nm process. I think it's actually 10nm now. It seems like there is some concern that we will get to 7nm.

This announcement is Trump PR. It's smart business. Get out of the way.

"This announcement is Trump PR. It's smart business."

That's how Im seeing it. Get on his good side turning an offshore opportunity into a bunch of domestic jobs. It can be spun into being critical for national security, too, if marketing team wants to take a chance on that.

I think you're right.

For the moment companies are reiterating long standing plans for US mfg jobs. But making it sound like new projects. A small number might be new. This is PR.

My guess is that this is not because they like Trump but because trade wars will hurt indiscriminately. So try to create enough cover for his base so he doesn't go "full retard".

If this was their plan all along, then they should have announced a plan to build a new chip fab in Mexico first.

You see, when I was younger, I would occasionally visit a research facility operated by an animal behavior professor at the nearby university. This particular facility kept a wolf pack and a bison herd. The main pack had a big livestock trough for its water. Whenever the research staff refilled it with fresh water, one of the alphas would jump into the trough and urinate in it--every time.

This is the same concept as the Battle Chess duck. You have to give the puffed-up bigwigs a way to mark their territory. Otherwise, they do something worse to show dominance. That funny taste in the water is a whole lot better than having to show your belly with someone else's jaws around your neck.

So you loudly announce moving factory jobs to Mexico, then cave to political pressure on schedule, and proceed with reactivating the mothballed factory.

Sorry, are you saying that all interactions have to go along the "Battle Chess duck" trope?

I see many other options. One, Intel invests 7b in a 7nm factory, oh shit 7nm is delayed, Trump elected, announce same factory now option.

No. I'm saying that the current administration has constrained itself politically, and Intel could have exploited that.

The move to another country is the sacrificial detail that both forces the negotiation and allows a "compromise" to go 100% in Intel's favor.

I wonder if this is the sort of nonsense people regurgitated when IBM was pandering to Hitler for business. We should call companies out for bullshit in all its forms, not just wink and smile because we get how it all works.

According to WalletHub, Arizona is the 13th most dependent state on Federal subsidies. 18 of the top 20 states most dependent on Federal dollars heavily lean Republican. You know, the party that is all about fiscal responsibility, anti-wealth redistribution, yadda yadda.

When everyone else is propping your state up, why not keep cutting state taxes to get some good PR around "job creation".

https://wallethub.com/edu/states-most-least-dependent-on-the...

Intel has always fabbed its high-IP parts in the USA or strongly allied countries (Israel, Ireland). They will never put a fab in China because the Chinese will rip off all their IP. The fact that Intel has resumed construction of a half-completed facility in the same town where they make almost everything else is not really news.

Intel opened a $ 2.5B fab in China in 2010. There's also an R/D office there.

Intel makes generic NAND memory on a 65nm process in that fab. That isn't the kind of IP anybody needs to steal.

Good point.

The organization that runs fabs (TMG) is also notoriously tight lipped in regards to corporate security, I would image they assessed leak risk before opening the fab.

I can't wait until every single company starts a PR campaign every single time they retool a factory or slightly expand production. "$1 billion investment, create or save 1,000 jobs!"

Whatever keeps you out of the Twitter crosshairs I guess.

Trump has already tweeted about it. It's like a new form of advertising. Trick the president into thinking he convinced you to re-invest, reap the benefits of his tweet.

But isn't that dangerous if he gets too much credit and gets reelected?

For sure, Intel and Ford (among others) shouldn't be pandering to him. However, I understand their position and reasoning, I'd likely do the same thing.

The Intel CEO announced the factory from the Oval Office this morning. This went way beyond some tweets.

> Trick the president

How do you know President Trump is not fully aware of what's happening and the PR game. It's a win-win for him, since it encourages more companies to invest in US infrastructure. I don't think you're giving enough credit.

Because they aren't investing more in the US, they are just re-announcing plans that were in place long ago. See Ford.

Being associated with Trump isnt necessarily good advertising.

I wonder if Intel considering it's third round of layouts in 18 months got as much coverage a couple months ago?

Probably indicative of how a lot of companies will operate. Lots of talk about new factories or what have you while really just continuing business as usual.

Gets me pretty worried about actually seeing wage growth during the Trump administration as a vague focus on building new factories and "keeping jobs here" won't drive wages up unless it's coupled with protections on labor groups and actual job creation leading to competition for labor...

http://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/index.ssf/2016/11/i...

I visited their fab in Israel. Amazing place and they are Israel's top high tech employee.

This is highly technical, high R&D stuff. Only their fabs in the US and a few other places (Israel, Ireland) can do that. But, in Israel they get preferential tax treatment (because otherwise they will leave and go to Ireland or the US).

So I wonder what would have happened had Trump not been president, or alternatively, what tax breaks he promised.

> So I wonder what would have happened had Trump not been president, or alternatively, what tax breaks he promised.

Someone else in this thread noted the fab was announced in 2011 but Intel decided not to move forward with it's completion until a later date.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2088040/intel-puts-on-hold-fa...

> It was announced by former Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini during a visit by U.S. President Barack Obama to an Intel facility in Hillsboro, Oregon, and was highlighted by Obama as an example of U.S. manufacturing potential.

Intel doesn't seem to care who is President.

Intel contributed $600 million (perhaps in tax breaks?) for the latest fab upgrade to 10 nm. It also has two design centers and altogether employs about 10,000 Iraelis.

Intel first started in Israel around 1974-ish with a small design center. Dov Frohman, who invented the flash memory for Intel, convinced Intel to start the design center in Israel when there was an engineering shortage in the US.

See Dov Frohman: Leadership the Hard Way https://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Hard-Way-Taught-Anyway/dp/...

Judging by the current Israeli governments recent laws (passing a law to legalise the grabbing of private Palestinian land that even the Supreme Court said was a bad idea), it's likely there is going to be a lot of political problems in the next few years for companies making big investments in Israel. The boycott movement is really heating up. Israeli tech talent and industry is excellent but so far it has managed to avoid political effects, that probably isn't going to last forever.

You don't have to like someone personally to appreciate the good they'll do for you and your family.

mean while the guy ignores the magnitudes more jobs in the solar industry to favor the antiquate coal jobs.

Hopefully he'll get on board with it soon - if things keep going the way they have been, soon it economically won't be feasible not to.

Solar employment is highly distributed throughout the country. That's not going to win any districts for your party.

true.

but I laugh at those coal workers thinking trump will somehow change market dynamics to make coal economical again.

Don't these types of fabs lead to things like all the EPA superfund sites around Silicon Valley? I personally hope we don't do that anywhere in this country again. Visit Guangzhou sometime to see what a city / country looks like with lax environmental regulations and a bustling manufacturing industry. You can still see the skyline from most parts of the city most days when the "fog" isn't so bad. Sure you and everyone you care about will die of cancer, but at least it would be better than damn socialism, right? And with all that money (just look at how rich they all are), surely everyone can afford hospital-grade whole-home air filtration systems like the rich there have.

Edit: s/fans/fabs

I don't know enough about the industry to know if superfund sites are a necessary thing for chip fabs.

That said, these chips have to be made somewhere. Is your solution to this to create superfund sites in other countries? To me, that isn't a solution. I would rather we make superfund sites here, so we have reasons to fix the problem, rather than create them elsewhere.

Or you could pay a surtax on imports that aren't built with the environmental standards of the native country, as we are seeing with attempts for a carbon tax.

Are they still using TCE[1] to manufacture semiconductors? That stuff is the major pollutant in silicon valley left over from all the early semiconductor manufacturing. There are a lot of really expensive homes and offices in Palo Alto that are built over sites where this stuff has leaked.[2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trichloroethylene

[2] http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/07/05/palo-alto-stanford-can...

Damn socialism was pretty horrible for the environment back when we had it around here, pre-1989. Our capital was blanketed by the exhaust of a huge steelworks plant several sizes too big for our economy, and our friendly neighbors across the river (brothers in socialism of course) regularly gassed one of our cities with chlorine.

You don't say which country this is/was. Since I can't think of any country ever existing that was truly built around socialist principles, I'd guess you were living in a totalitarian regime parading itself as socialist via propaganda.

Regardless, it's not as if capitalism can't produce environmentally disastrous results. Google "Chevron brazil oil spill".

I can't find a list of local Superfund sites that shows degree of pollution or costs of cleanup, but the Lorentz Barrel & Drum fiasco got a lot of press.

That site is now a parking lot for (apparently) auto dealership storage. It's at 10th and Alma, across the street from both Spartan Stadium and the Ice Center.

In the video, the Intel CEO claimed that it will generate 10,000 additional jobs in the area.

I have been thinking that currently NAND fabs would be good, not to restore jobs but to restore the balance of trade. It is probably not a simple matter though.

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