Intel Gets Go-Ahead For $4 Billion Chip Plant In Ireland 104
alancronin writes "Intel has been planning to make its Ireland base one of three global manufacturing sites for its 14nm chips since May last year, and its now been given the okay by Ireland's lead planning agency. The new $4 billion plant will create around 4,300 jobs for the region in Co. Kildare, where Intel already has around 4,000 on staff. The two-year plan involves redeveloping its existing operation, expanding and shifting to make its smaller, more efficient 14nm process. Intel's plans don't stop there, however. It still plans to roll out 10nm products sometime in 2015."
Re:well, good. (Score:5, Informative)
I'm sure the reason they chose Ireland was because of the tax breaks...
Re:well, good. (Score:5, Informative)
absolutely, its ony 12.5% as opposed to the the UK and france where it is in the 20's.
also due to the recession and austerity, ireland is very competitive when it comes to wages.
logical choice.
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That, and Intel isn't forced to transfer the profits declared in their irish subsidiary to the US, where they would be forced to pay taxes.
Re:well, good. (Score:5, Funny)
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When we debated the Irish 12.5% corporation tax in Europe it quickly became apparent that compaines can reduce the headline rate in France down to 8% http://www.finfacts.ie/irishfinancenews/article_1021869.shtml
Also it should be pointed out that companies such as Google move most of their profit through Bermuda so the taxable profits in Ireland are very small even with the low rate.
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absolutely, its ony 12.5% as opposed to the the UK and france where it is in the 20's.
also due to the recession and austerity, ireland is very competitive when it comes to wages.
logical choice.
If that was their reasoning, then this plant would be in Southeast Asia which has lower taxes and much lower wages.
Re:well, good. (Score:4, Insightful)
There could be other reasons to avoid that. Granted, I don't think the idea is that prevalent in the technology sector, but in a lot of various areas there's the attitude that anything made in SE Asia (with the exception of Japan) is junk. Doesn't really matter if it actually IS junk or not, but that's the perception.
Take pocket-knives for example. Buck Knives moved some of their lower end production to China a few years back, and despite the Chinese made products actually being pretty decent quality, the community opinion of them ranks a Chinese-made Buck about on the level of a counterfeit.
Western European countries generally don't suffer that bias. They're still known as a location of "craftsman". Like I said I don't think its as much of an issue with electronics, but I certainly do know people who absolutely won't buy something if it says "Made in " China, Taiwan, Vietnam, etc. As I mentioned earlier about the only country around there that's managed to shake that image is Japan, who certainly is known for producing quality stuff.
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And it took Japan many years to share that image. Both Japanese cars and electronics were considered as cheap crap when they started.
All countries which enter a new industry globally compete first on price. Then they improve quality.
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Also, there's IP issues. China is pretty keen on their home-grown CPUs. Their MIPS-based processors (with x86 emulation) are 10 years behind what Intel can do, but they are keen to catch up.
Yes I know China's not a monolithic entity, and the Chinese government rarely does more than turn a blind eye on the theft of foreign IP, but still ...
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It's not an entirely unreasonable view from the perspective of the customer, though. Outsourcing manufacture of a product (to anywhere, but SE Asia is the locale of choice these days) is a cost-cutting move. When a company is deep enough in cost-cutting mode to close up local manufacturing and completely move it out of the country, it wouldn't be surprising if they asked the new manufacturer to decrease the quality, too. Or if they haven't yet asked that, they might shortly do so to further cut costs. Or th
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Re:well, good. (Score:5, Insightful)
It comes at a cost - the Irish government is famous for encouraging huge foreign businesses to come in and set up to bring in thousands of jobs at a time at the expense of encouraging any sort of local entrepreneur. As a result, there are quite a few towns where a disproportionate number of jobs depend not just on a specific industry, but on a specific company within that industry.
When that company leaves for even cheaper pastures, the town's in trouble.
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It comes at a cost - the Irish government is famous for encouraging huge foreign businesses to come in and set up to bring in thousands of jobs at a time at the expense of encouraging any sort of local entrepreneur. As a result, there are quite a few towns where a disproportionate number of jobs depend not just on a specific industry, but on a specific company within that industry.
When that company leaves for even cheaper pastures, the town's in trouble.
At least i'ts only a limited number of municipalities, In China the entire national economy depends on this strategy.
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QFT.
Bodies like the NDRC frequently back the wrong horse. The cream of Irish IT industry emigrates to greener pastures for a variety of reasons;
1) Salaries elsewhere like the US are far higher -- I could be earning double what I get here in the US (after currency conversion)
2) The standards of professionalism and skills are higher -- I'm currently working for an Irish software company; There is a severe technical deficit and a propensity towards small world aspirations i.e. "We'll never be big enough to com
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What bollocks. Ryanair is one of the better known success stories, but it is far from alone. The problem with Ireland is there's no money and a bizarre distaste in the public sector for local entrepreneurs (ie the self employed can't claim any social support, making starting your own business a seriously risky proposal and not something anyone with dependents should consider), not a lack of local talent.
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> It comes at a cost - the Irish government is famous for encouraging huge foreign businesses to come in and set up to bring in thousands of jobs at a time at the expense of encouraging any sort of local entrepreneur.
That's right, a local Irish company building state-of-the art 14nm CPU fab facilities would have just sprung into existance, if it weren't for the Irish government favouring Intel.
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That's right, a local Irish company building state-of-the art 14nm CPU fab facilities would have just sprung into existance, if it weren't for the Irish government favouring Intel.
Obviously not.
But a hundred local Irish companies doing something a lot less state-of-the-art have not sprung into existence. And it's a lot easier for one company to leave the area than it is for a hundred to.
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Once that plant is in operation, its not going anywhere. It will represent a huge chunk of Intel's assets, and you dont just decide one day youre going to pick up your fab and relocate it to india. These sites cost billions of dollars and take years to build.
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Except fabs are somewhat special.
They're expensive - t
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Google also employ thousands of people in Dublin.
Re:well, good. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Incredible. Just providing hundreds of jobs is evil, and not thinking that that's better than nothing.
I find it sickening the meme has now spread to the masses that people who actually do things, businesses, are looked at the way Adam and Eve looked at plants in the Garden of Eden -- they only exist at your beknighted sufferance, and may ne plucked at your whim so you can do things.
They're in Ireland because they're fleeing even worse confiscatory self-righteousness elsewhere.
Woe be to this planet with a w
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So, isn't it just normal they speak badly about those poor bastards who just want to have bigger profit's rate ?
Providing hundreds of jobs you say ? I see exploiting other's lifes. (I might be kind of communist here...)
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It's not exploitation if people choose to work those jobs, i.e. they consider working the job better than all their other options. It's not just the wage they make: it's a lot easier to work a job than to build a business, and that's why so many choose to work jobs.
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So, who pays for the education of the workers, their healthcare, their food and housing in any times they're not employed, the roads, railways and airports Intel will rely on, etc?
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Re:well, good. (Score:4, Interesting)
Ireland's tax rate on trading income is 12.5% the average effective corporate tax rate in the US is 27%. However, that 12.5% pays for universal health care for the workers (paying 80% of health care costs). It is far more likely that lower wages AND benefit costs are the deciding factor instead of taxes. Businesses will gladly pay more in taxes if it means they can get rid of a huge cost they have little control over (benefits account for as much as 40% of one's wages and health care is the largest portion of that).
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Carefully-worded!
Ireland is used by some companies as a tax-dodge because profits can be freely shifted around the EU and Ireland's corporation tax rate is amongst the lowest within the EU (and even friendlier for some specific things like IP). Tax-dodging companies shift profits into Ireland on paper using intangibles, management charges, interest and suchlike. It's typically... difficult to understand... how these profit-shifts relate to economic or commercial reality, especially when the corporate addres
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Good news (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't care if the reason why they place their facility on Ireland is the low taxes. At least they are giving the Irish people jobs in return, unlike many other corporations. Also, I get to buy cheap processors that were not manufactured in Asia.
Intel doesn't manufacture in Asia much (Score:5, Informative)
8 of their 11 current fabs are in the USA, one is in Ireland, one is in Israel, one is in China. The Chinese plant doesn't do CPUs, as far as I know, as it is an older process. They do some packaging in Asia, in Singapore if I remember correctly, but you don't tend to see those chips in the US and EU as they have closer packaging plants (in the US you mostly see products from the US packaging plant and their Costa Rica plant).
AMD also isn't Asia focused for CPUs. They have them manufactured at Global Foundries which has a fab in the US, Germany, and Singapore.
Discrete GPUs are all fabbed in Asia these days, specifically in Taiwan by TSMC. Now that may change as TSMC has been badly fucking up they may switch to someone else but for now, all TSMC.
In terms of other stuff, like mobile processors, it can vary highly. For example Samsung is a big player in that market and you might expect Korea to be where they fab. While that's true for flash, for processors it is most in Texas. If you have a phone with a 32nm Samsung processor, Texas ware probably where it was made.
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You're probably meaning the Malaysia plants in Penang and nearby Kulim (which operate as a single entity AFAIK). Singapore doesn't have the land area for a plant that could be considered one of Intel's largest, and no Singapore plant is listed here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_manufacturing_sites [wikipedia.org]
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AMD also isn't Asia focused for CPUs. They have them manufactured at Global Foundries which has a fab in the US, Germany, and Singapore. Discrete GPUs are all fabbed in Asia these days, specifically in Taiwan by TSMC. Now that may change as TSMC has been badly fucking up they may switch to someone else but for now, all TSMC.
AMD has been paying big bucks to get out of wafer agreements with GloFo, they canceled Krishna and Wichita and started over at TSMC so it's both GPUs and APUs. If TSMC run into trouble the two biggest winners will be Intel and Samsung that have foundries of their own because there's really no good replacement right now.
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Hmmm...
I recall when I used to do a lot of OC you used to look for batches, and usually it would involve a specific batch of serial numbers and either a Singapore or a Malaysia name on it. I had assumed they were built there. Perhaps that is just where the package is assembled and then stamped... Interesting...
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Desert is the last word you'd use to describe Limerick. It rains here all the damn time!
Article(s) didn't state a reason? (Score:2)
Here in California its already shown us what happens. They increased tax yet revenue tanked (the rich are simply moving and taking mo
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"Made in Ireland" (Score:1)
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Apple still have huge facilities in Cork. Until Dell left they were the EMEA maufacturing facility. Intel, IBM, Google and Facebook all employ thousands of people around Dublin. If Ireland had any kind of venture capital markets...
Real reason they did this, (Score:2)
Intel wants more horse meat in their products.
Chip plant? Well it makes sense... (Score:2)
...after all, that's a good local supply of potatoes they got there.
Wonder what flavours they'll be making? Classics like Barbeque and Salt and Vinegar, or will they be targeting the specialty flavour markets, like Sauerkraut Surprise? (Surprise...it's sauerkraut flavoured!)
Meh...please excuse my Friday silliness... ;o)
4300 jobs!!! (Score:1)
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I thought it's "lead" as in the element, Pb.
Then again, what do I know about chip manufacture?
They don't use lead anymore (Score:2)
They never used much, just in solder, but due to RoHS it is all gone now.
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Except where it matters.
I believe that aviation, military and other safety critical grade equipment (medical?) are still permitted to use PbSn 60/40 solder. The SnCu ones aren't well characterised enough and still appear to be slightly too prone to tin whiskers for long term critical use.
Though I don't know if they've done much by the way of soldering inside chips recently anyway.
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The switch from SnPb to Pb-free has opened the door to lots of proprietary flavors of solders in the class of Sn + Ag/Cu/In/Sb/Zn + dopant metals
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people just take it for granted that some government agency can prevent a business from opening wherever
How do you know that people take it for granted? Do you live in Ireland? No, it's quite clear that you don't.
All planning permission is obtained through An Bord Pleanála. Anyone can appeal the issue of planning permission or bring to attention the lack thereof. How exactly do you propose that a company like Intel would buy or lease enough private property in Leixlip to create 4,300 jobs without getting permission?
Your comment is rightly scored at -1. While I'm on the subject, I read through the first f
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We want money to be stolen from actual productive people and given to us. That's it, that's the ticket to prosperity. Theft and redistribution.
Don't be an ignoramus. People have been subject to "theft and redistribution" ever since the occupants of the first settlement of three straw huts decided to enclose it with a common fence. Nobody would be "productive" without taking plenty of advantage of government-supplied services and protection. Corporations are no exception to this.
Taxes are a basic part of the way human society functions, and always have been Deal with it.
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Ironic that your latest posts include accusing people of being prejudice.
A few posts back, but I take the point. This was meant to be light-hearted rather than vicious racism, I'm sorry if it came across wrong. Many of my relatives are Irish - and my wife has Irish ancestry.
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It's a terrible idea for a joke. In terms of offensiveness it would be equivalent to referring to an investment in Israel with references to "Hymie" and the Holocaust.
I'm pretty sure you wish you delete that post, but that's the "Internet trap" - you'll never be able to delete it.
For the record, born 2nd Generation English with Irish, Italian and Austrian ancestry.
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The Micks will be disappointed when they realise they are not making potato chips
Even if they'd be potato chips, can you imagine the nutrition level of a 14 nm potato? And if you get to pay $400+ for a "can" of those, would this be a reason for exultation?
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What a racist moron.
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Oh really? Try this one on for size: "The blacks will be disappointed when they realise they are not making KFC"
All of a sudden it's shocking and racist. And yet the Irish have been subjected to as much if not more horrific slavery (about a third of the country enslaved and sent to Jamaica to work in the plantations, being buried where they dropped in the fields), attempted genocides and deliberate destruction throughout their history than any African nation. At the tail end of which we have Chrisq and his
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I assume you're not American.
KFC is shit. YumFoods brand. Awful. KFC is to good chicken; as Taco Bell is to good Mexican, as Arby's is to a good roast beef sandwich, as Pizza Hut is to good pizza. To you notice a pattern? YumFoods brands are uniformly shit. Owned by Japanese who, I assume, don't like American food.
Black folks are sometimes so proud they wont let white people see them eat fried chicken, watermelon or half dozen stereotyped foods. When they do you can bet they know a better place then KF