Technology Innovation Leads To Economic Growth

Intel CEO Barrett:
Technology Innovation Leads To Economic Growth

AUCKLAND, February 26, 2002 – Intel CEO Craig Barrett today said that the world’s economies are increasingly driven by technology, and that investing in and developing new technologies is key to prosperity and economic development. Despite the current economic slowdown, the build-out of the Internet and the drive to create knowledge-based economies will continue to foster economic growth worldwide.

“As developing nations strive to build knowledge-based economies, technology is driving prosperity and productivity,” said Barrett. “For the industrialised world, technology is what will lead us to new growth and economic recovery. The trend toward increasing reliance on technology for economic growth will only continue in the future.

“Silicon technology and the integration of digital computing and communications are at the heart of underlying technology advancement and progress, and Intel is committed to leading in this area.”

During his remarks to approximately 4,000 developers, engineers and other technical experts at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF), Barrett stated that Moore’s Law (the observation first made by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore that semiconductor density doubles roughly every 18 months) and the Internet are not only alive and well, but are the driving forces behind fundamental economic growth. Intel plans to be at the forefront of providing the computing and communications industries with the core technologies that will help provide the foundation for continued technology innovation and the growth of the Internet.

Barrett stated that E-Business, communication, entertainment and information access are among the applications that are likely to spur continued Internet growth. However, issues related to online security, the glacial pace of broadband deployment and the ability to realise the benefit of Web services (standards-based e-business) remain as challenges. He urged additional focus and development of technical solutions to overcoming these challenges.

The companies that are successful using technology to enable continued growth of the Internet or help resolve the challenges that inhibit that growth, are those that are most likely to distance themselves from competitors. In addition, the move toward open standards, the ability to tailor technologies to meet user needs and specific market segments, and the trend toward standardisation in the communications industry, are all areas where the technology industry has an opportunity to fuel growth and breakaway from the current economic downturn.

In his remarks, Barrett stated that Intel’s decision last year to continue high levels of investment in manufacturing capacity and R&D during the biggest downturn in the history of the semiconductor industry were beginning to bear fruit. Intel now has five major facilities running the industry’s most advanced 0.13-micron manufacturing process.

In addition, Barrett announced Intel has just recently completed and began shipping production microprocessors built at the company’s new 300mm wafer facility in Oregon. The processors are believed to be the industry’s first production components built on a 300mm wafer production line using the advanced 0.13-micron process technology. The combination of 0.13-micron technology and 300mm wafers allows Intel to build about four times as many processors per wafer as the previous generation of 0.18-mircon, 200mm wafers. Being the first to move to larger wafers and by squeezing circuit lines and transistors closer together enables Intel to benefit from significant cost and chip performance advantages.

“Intel’s investment in technology is designed to help provide our customers with the advantages they require for their own innovation,” said Barrett. “The relentless advance of technology doesn’t wait for economic recovery. By moving forward with our aggressive technology and manufacturing programs, we are not far from seeing the day when we can put two billion transistors on a chip that operates at speeds of up to 30 GHz. These are the kinds of technologies that will help our customers build great new products.”

Also addressing the IDF audience, Mike Fister, senior vice president and general manager of Intel’s Enterprise Platform Group, described recent server trends and introduced several new Intel products. Traditional server data centres are evolving into different market segments with different platform performance, form factor and power requirements. This trend, coupled with an increasing number of businesses moving away from proprietary computing systems, favours the open computing approach and flexibility that Intel-based servers are delivering today.

Fister also discussed the newly introduced Intel® Xeon™ processor for servers that enables Intel’s unique Hyper-Threading technology and the innovative Intel® E7500 chipset for dual-processing servers. He also highlighted growing momentum behind the Intel’s next Itanium™ processor product (code-named McKinley) due mid-year, as well as future Itanium processors, including those code-named Madison and Deerfield, which are due to appear in systems sometime next year. Fister also disclosed other Itanium processor products under development, including a processor code-named Montecito targeted for systems in the 2004 timeframe.

Richard Wirt, Intel Fellow and co-general manager of Intel’s Software and Solutions Group, provided the IDF audience with information on the latest trends and challenges in software development, focusing on multi-threading and web services. Intel has numerous products and enabling programs underway to support the software development community as these trends evolve. Wirt also said Intel is committed to championing industry standards and working with the industry to tune and optimise software infrastructure and solutions running on the latest Intel-based platforms.

ENDS

About IDF
The Intel Developer Forum is the technology industry's premier event for hardware and software developers. Held worldwide throughout the year, IDF brings together key industry players to discuss cutting-edge technology and products for PCs, servers, communications equipment, and handheld clients. For more information on IDF and Intel technology, visit http://developer.intel.com.

Intel, the world’s largest chip maker, is also a leading manufacturer of computer, networking and communications products. Additional information about Intel is available at www.intel.com/pressroom.

* Intel is a registered trademark of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.

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