Intel's Barrett flies in to discuss Fab 28 with Israel's PM

NETANYA, Israel — Craig Barrett, chairman of Intel Corp. (Santa Clara, Calif.), came to Israel on Sunday (Jan. 27), for a one-day visit during which he met with Israel's prime minister Ehud Olmert and reviewed Intel's worldwide and local activities.

Barrett discussed the advancement of the building of Intel's Fab 28 in Kiryat Gat in southern Israel. Intel Israel's general manager, Maxine Fassberg, was present at the meeting. The newly-built wafer fab is expected to receive an investment of around $4 billion from Intel, with addition support worth about $525 million coming from the government of Israel. Fab 28 is set to manufacture at the 45-nanometer manufacturing node on 300-mm diameter wafers. The plant is expected to ramp up to reach volume production in mid-2009.

Set to cover an area of 130,000 square meters in four buildings, including 20,000 square meters of class 10 clean rooms, Fab 28 is Israel's largest construction project. The fab is expected to generate exports worth $3 billion annually. Numonyx, the flash memory venture being created by the sale of memory operations by Intel and STMicroelectronics, is set to become the owner of Intel's first fab in Kiryat Gat, Fab 18. Fab 18 opened in 1999 and it now employs more than 2,000 people. The plant currently manufactures processors using 0.18-micron technology. Built with a total investment of $1.6 billion — $1 billion invested by Intel and the rest by the government of Israel — the manufacturing plant includes a 9,000-square-meter clean room.