Ireland will become home to one of Intel’s new factories, thanks to the Irish government giving the company permission to build a $4 billion plant on its soil. Eight months after Intel applied for a permit, construction on the new plant will finally begin. The specific product to be manufactured in that plant is none other than the company’s next generation 14nm processors.
It will take Intel a total of two years to finish building the plant, which will be comprised of a three-story main manufacturing area that’s 1,085,000 square feet big. There will also be a facility that houses liquid chemicals and waste water (which will be treated in yet another facility), a two-story building that houses the boiler and the chiller, and buildings fitted with diesel generators as a source of electricity in case of an emergency. It will create 3,500 construction jobs and will employ 800 full-time employees when it’s done.
The Ireland plant is only one of the three factories Intel plans to devote to manufacturing 14nm chips, the other two being its factories in Oregon and Arizona. The company aims to launch its 14nm chips, codenamed Broadwell, which are smaller and more energy-efficient than its current 22nm chips, within two years. After that, it has its eyes set on the production of chips even smaller than 14nm.
