Consolidating On An Oregon Campus

Dec. 21, 2004

Intel shifts development of flash memory production technology from California.

Now, even more than before, Oregon can lay claim to the label "Intel Inside." Intel Corp., a $30.1 billion California-headquartered semiconductor maker, is shifting development of its flash memory production technology from Santa Clara, Calif., to its Ronler Acres Campus in Hillsboro, Ore., 18 miles west of Portland. With more than 14,000 employees, the campus is part of Intel Oregon and is Intel's primary site for the development of new manufacturing technologies. In April of last year, Intel dedicated a fabrication plant on the campus for development of manufacturing technology for future microprocessors on 300-millimeter wafers -- an investment, including tools, of about $2 billion. "To put it simply, with the increasing cost of equipment and facilities, it makes sense to consolidate 300-millimeter development on one site to benefit from the use of existing 300-millimeter capital investments," says Bill MacKenzie, a spokesman for Intel Oregon. "The shift [of flash-memory production technology development] fits in with Intel's constant drive to improve productivity and hold down costs." Flash memory is used in such small electronic devices as cell phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and digital cameras. "Intel must continue to invest in the future by developing new manufacturing technologies and capabilities. We do this because we cannot save our way out of a recession. We can only grow out of a recession with new products and new technologies," Craig Barrett, Intel's CEO has said repeatedly during the past couple of years. A "handful" of people are expected to relocate from California to Oregon this year to begin planning the larger transition of flash-memory production technology development, says MacKenzie. "The bulk of the transition will begin at the end of 2005 and the beginning of 2006." The company considered several other options, but "it was determined that shifting flash development to Intel Oregon made the most sense," says MacKenzie. The benefits derived from consolidating 300-millimeter technology development on one campus were "the key reason" for choosing Oregon, he reiterates. Neither the state of Oregon nor Washington County, where the Ronler Acres campus is located, offered any specific economic-development incentives to encourage the shift from California. However, "Washington County's and Hillsboro's positive investment environment did, of course, play a role in the decision," says MacKenzie. For example, in 2003 the county permanently waived a potential employment fee permitted under the 1999 Strategic Investment Program agreement between Intel and the county. That provision could have required Intel to pay the county $1,000 for each additional manufacturing employee if Intel Oregon's manufacturing employment exceeded 5,000. "Intel and Washington County were in agreement that we should work together to hold down costs, encourage efficiencies, and preserve and grow opportunities for good jobs," says MacKenzie.

About the Author

John McClenahen | Former Senior Editor, IndustryWeek

John S. McClenahen, is an occasional essayist on the Web site of IndustryWeek, the executive management publication from which he retired in 2006. He began his journalism career as a broadcast journalist at Westinghouse Broadcasting’s KYW in Cleveland, Ohio. In May 1967, he joined Penton Media Inc. in Cleveland and in September 1967 was transferred to Washington, DC, the base from which for nearly 40 years he wrote primarily about national and international economics and politics, and corporate social responsibility.

      McClenahen, a native of Ohio now residing in Maryland, is an award-winning writer and photographer. He is the author of three books of poetry, most recently An Unexpected Poet (2013), and several books of photographs, including Black, White, and Shades of Grey (2014). He also is the author of a children’s book, Henry at His Beach (2014).

      His photograph “Provincetown: Fog Rising 2004” was selected for the Smithsonian Institution’s 2011 juried exhibition Artists at Work and displayed in the S. Dillon Ripley Center at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., from June until October 2011. Five of his photographs are in the collection of St. Lawrence University and displayed on campus in Canton, New York.

      John McClenahen’s essay “Incorporating America: Whitman in Context” was designated one of the five best works published in The Journal of Graduate Liberal Studies during the twelve-year editorship of R. Barry Leavis of Rollins College. John McClenahen’s several journalism prizes include the coveted Jesse H. Neal Award. He also is the author of the commemorative poem “Upon 50 Years,” celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Wolfson College Cambridge, and appearing in “The Wolfson Review.”

      John McClenahen received a B.A. (English with a minor in government) from St. Lawrence University, an M.A., (English) from Western Reserve University, and a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies from Georgetown University, where he also pursued doctoral studies. At St. Lawrence University, he was elected to academic honor societies in English and government and to Omicron Delta Kappa, the University’s highest undergraduate honor. John McClenahen was a participant in the 32nd Annual Wharton Seminars for Journalists at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. During the Easter Term of the 1986 academic year, John McClenahen was the first American to hold a prestigious Press Fellowship at Wolfson College, Cambridge, in the United Kingdom.

      John McClenahen has served on the Editorial Board of Confluence: The Journal of Graduate Liberal Studies and was co-founder and first editor of Liberal Studies at Georgetown. He has been a volunteer researcher on the William Steinway Diary Project at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., and has been an assistant professorial lecturer at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C.