The US Intel Corporation is the world's largest chip maker and 1999 marked the beginning of its fourth decade of global operations with total sales in 1998 of more than $26 billion. Intel designs, manufactures and markets microcomputer components and related products at various levels of integration. Intel's principal components consist of silicon-based semiconductors etched with complex patterns of transistors. The recent auspicious gala opening of Intel Corporation's third and largest facility in Israel -- a $1.6 billion state-of the-art manufacturing plant to produce the world's thinnest microprocessors -- 0.18 microns -- for processors and Internet infrastructure took place recently in the gateway to the desert city Kiryat Gat,. These microprocessors will be incorporated in the next generation of computers, computer networks and hand held digital devices. The dedication ceremony of Intel's Kiryat Gat plant brought to Israel one of the most influential people in the high tech industry worldwide: Dr. Craig Barrett, president of Intel. "By 2002 I foresee one trillion dollars in industry e-commerce revenues. My vision is of one billion powerful, resilient connected PC's worldwide, based on Intel technology and supported by an infrastructure driven by millions of connected servers," stated Dr. Barrett. As industry statistics are issued monthly Dr. Barrett's predictions seem less visionary and more realistic.
In November 1971, Intel introduced the world's first commercial microprocessor, the 4004, invented by three Intel engineers. Primitive by today's standards, it contained a mere 2300 transistors and performed about 60,000 calculations in a second. Twenty eight years later, the microprocessor is the most complex mass-produced product ever, with more than 5.5 million transistors performing hundreds of millions of calculations each second. The Intel-Israel story is 25 years old. Intel set up its first operation-- a development facility in Haifa. The popular Pentium II was developed there and became a major component of Intel chips. An additional facility exists in Jerusalem.
The sparkling Kiryat Gat plant will produce the new Pentium III whose development is being completed in the Haifa facility. Intel President Craig Barrett said he expects the factory to produce $1billion worth of components a year beginning in 2000. Production began in August, with the first microchips currently coming off the assembly line. Construction of the factory began in 1996. Intel invested $1 billion, and the Israeli government put up some $600 million. Intel expects to produce $1 billion worth of exports annually from its new Gat plant, said Dr. Barrett. That figure would approximately be one sixth of all of Israel's electronics-industry exports in today's terms. Intel is to employ 1,500 full-time workers at the state-of-the-art facility and expects to create an additional 2,000 to 3,000 jobs in the future, including another 1,500 at the plant itself. "In addition to providing jobs, the plant has generated hundreds of millions of dollars in payments for goods and services to Israeli companies and supplier development," said plant director Alex Kornhauser.