Intel dedicates Fab 28 in Kiryat Gat

Intel Corporation today dedicated Fab 28 in Kiryat Gat in an impressive and grandiose eremony filled with acrobats, drummers, pyrotechnics, and a children's choir. Intel invested more than $3.5 billion in the fab. The new fab is next to Intel's old Fab 18, now Fab 1 of Numonyx Inc.

Fab 28 is due to employ more than 2,000 people, out of the 7,300 people Intel employs in Israel. Fab 28 will manufacture 45-nanometer technology processors and is one Intel's three most modern facilities worldwide. Intel Israel general manager Maxine Fassberg will manage the facility, which occupies a 283-dunam (70.75-acre) site and has 20,000 square meters of clean rooms.

Fassberg said that a fab of this kind was "unparalleled in Israel. This fab will deliver $10 million worth of silicon wafers a day."

Intel estimates that Fab 28 will boost Israel's GDP by 2%. Intel estimates that Intel Israel had $1.54 billion in exports in 2007.

Globes
July 1, 2008

SanDisk's 32 Gigabyte Solid-State Drive Designed in Israel

Yesterday, the company SanDisk showcased its newly introduced 32 gigabyte solid-state drive at the Storage Visions conference in Las Vegas. The 1.8-in. drive is designed to replace the hard drive in devices that usually rely on that form factor. The full article on this device that may change the PC mobile market in a big way, is located at:
http://www.jr.co.il/articles/sandisk-shows-solid-state-drive.txt
So what does this have to do with Israel ?
Well, the SanDisk's SSD was engineered by the company's new Israel-based Computing Solutions Division (part of SanDisk's acquisition of M-Systems). This is just one example from hundreds of advanced technology wonders that have been developed in Israel.
When I worked at Intel Electronics in Jerusalem (84-90) I attended meetings (by phone and in person) with many Intel employees from the US. Based on these meetings I gathered that the Intel Israeli design centers and manufacturing centers have very good reputations within Intel and in the industry. Many people do not know that their computers have chips that were either designed or manufactured in Israel. There is no "made in Israel" or "designed in Israel" stamped on the chip. However, the industry knows and many other international companies have picked up on this and followed Intel's lead and setup shop in Israel. Another giant company that has thousands of hi-tech workers in Israel, and produces chips for cellular phones and communication systems, is Motorola. In fact, if I am not mistaken, Motorola was here before Intel. Again, you will probably not find "made in Israel" in the equipment, but people in the indutry know. Back in 2004, I went to a telcommunications show in Tel-Aviv. The Israel Export Institute had a booth and gave out a real cool poster called: Israel Silicon Valley 2004. What was so cool about it ? It showed a map of Israel with logos of large high-tech companies that have key facilities in Israel. Here are two pictures of the map:

http://www.jr.co.il/pictures/israel/telecom/tc134.htm

and

http://www.jr.co.il/pictures/israel/telecom/tc135.htm
I am sure that today you can add many more logos to the map.

Not only is Israel a magnet for attracting large international companies, Israel has the largest number of startups in the world per capita.

Besides computers and communications there are many other fields that Israeli companies have made big advances. One of them is the biomedical sciences. However, this entry is getting too long so that will have to wait for a future posting.

The bottom line is that people all over the world have a hard time finding Israel on the map (so small in physical size that the word "Israel" is usually bigger than the country drawing). However, even though we are small in size on the map, our ingenuity and innovation is spread all over the world. Something to be very proud of.

Have a good night,
Jacob