Intel Corp

Intel Corp. plans to spend $7 billion upgrading its U.S. factories over the next two years, a sign that the recession hasn't extinguished chip makers' thirst for cutting-edge equipment. The company's investment, announced Tuesday by Intel Chief Executive Paul S. Otellini in a speech in Washington, speaks to the semiconductor industry's need to keep investing heavily regardless of the poor economic climate that has led Intel to cut jobs.

Intel Corp. plans to move its flash memory production technology from California to Oregon, adding as many as 300 jobs in suburban Hillsboro. Intel recently told employees of its D2 manufacturing plant at company headquarters in Santa Clara that it would move some jobs to Oregon this year, then accelerate transfers in 2005 through 2008. The D2 plant, built in 1988 and enlarged in three subsequent phases, is Intel's only remaining factory in California. From Associated Press

"When is a change really a strategic inflection point? Changes take place in business all the time. Some are minor, some are major. Some are transitory, some represent the beginning of a new era." --Intel Corp.

State tax authorities defied lawmakers Monday by reviving ReadyReturn, a program that allows some taxpayers to have the state do their returns for them, and expanding it from a tiny pilot project to a service for 1 million Californians. The move was engineered by outgoing Controller Steve Westly and his successor, John Chiang, both champions of the program. Intuit, the Silicon Valley manufacturer of TurboTax, spent $1 million trying to defeat Chiang on Nov. 7 and stop the program.

The nonprofit that aims to seed the developing world with inexpensive laptop computers for schoolchildren has made peace with Intel Corp., the project's most powerful rival. The One Laptop Per Child program and Intel said Friday that the chip maker would join the board of the nonprofit and contribute funding.

Intel Corp., as expected, will win a Vietnamese government license to build a $605-million chip and computer-parts factory. Intel applied in early January to build the plant in Ho Chi Minh City. The investment license for Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel was approved by the Ministry of Planning and Investment this week, Vietnamese officials said.

In another sign of Intel Corp.'s eroding market share, the world's largest chip maker warned Friday that it would miss quarterly sales targets as demand slips and archrival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. grabs customers. It was the latest indication of vulnerability from Intel, which supplies 80% of the microprocessors that run computers. In recent quarters, the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company has grappled with component shortages, canceled products and gains by AMD.

Trying to increase demand for personal computers in India and other emerging markets, Intel Corp. plans to invest $1 billion over the next five years to promote the use of computers in schools, cafes and other public spots in developing countries.

Intel Corp., the world's largest computer chip maker, announced Friday that it would more than triple its investment in Vietnam to $1 billion, dramatically expanding the size of a chip assembly and testing plant that it is building in the country's southern business hub.

Intel Corp. has sued a Chinese networking components maker for allegedly using copyrighted software in its products. The suit, filed last week against Shenzhen Donjin Communication Tech Co., may mark Intel's first intellectual property theft lawsuit in China, an Intel spokesman said. The U.S. chip industry has made the theft of intellectual property in China a top priority.

Federal regulators on Wednesday accused Intel Corp. of abusing its market dominance to stifle competition in a lawsuit that, instead of seeking monetary damages, would impose more painful, fundamental changes on the way the world's leading computer chip maker does business. The suit by the Federal Trade Commission reaches further than any of the other regulatory cases brought in recent years against Intel, which commands about 81% of the world's market for central processing units, the brains of computers and other electronic gear.

Intel Corp. appealed a record $1.5-billion fine by the European Union. The EU's antitrust regulator accused the Santa Clara, Calif., computer firm in May of using rebates to thwart competitors.

Intel Corp. shed a few rays of hope Tuesday when it posted second-quarter results that beat Wall Street's expectations and triggered a rally in the semiconductor giant's stock price. The Santa Clara, Calif., chip company posted $8 billion in second-quarter revenue, up 12% from first-quarter sales of $7.1 billion. Its revenue was powered by sales of its Atom processor, used in fast-selling netbook personal computers, which are lightweight laptops that sell for as little as $200.

If you don't know that Intel Corp. pioneered the microprocessor, invented the USB standard and helped build Silicon Valley into the thriving tech powerhouse it is today, you probably will soon. The chip-making giant is about to launch "Sponsors of Tomorrow," a massive advertising campaign in more than two dozen countries that seeks to make people more familiar with the Intel brand.

Semiconductor giant Intel Corp.'s first-quarter sales and profit tumbled, but the technology bellwether said Tuesday that the personal-computer market it dominates was finally stabilizing from a free fall that began last year as consumers zipped up their wallets and made do with the hardware they had. Although the chip maker's earnings fell 55% and revenue dropped 26%, both beat Wall Street's estimates.

Intel Corp. said Monday that it would freeze salaries and exchange employee stock options as the economic slump has weighed on chip orders and its share price has slumped. The Santa Clara, Calif., company, whose profit fell 24% last year, has suspended raises, according to a regulatory filing. The freeze includes executives, though Intel said the value of Chief Executive Paul Otellini's compensation rose 10% to $12.7 million last year.

Intel Corp. said Advanced Micro Devices Inc.'s spinoff of its plants into a new company violated a patent license for the technology used to make all personal computer processors. The AMD plant venture, Globalfoundries, isn't a subsidiary under the terms of a 2001 cross-license agreement between the two firms, Intel said. AMD, Intel's only major rival in microprocessors, denied any breach.

Intel Corp. plans to spend $7 billion upgrading its U.S. factories over the next two years, a sign that the recession hasn't extinguished chip makers' thirst for cutting-edge equipment. The company's investment, announced Tuesday by Intel Chief Executive Paul S. Otellini in a speech in Washington, speaks to the semiconductor industry's need to keep investing heavily regardless of the poor economic climate that has led Intel to cut jobs.

Intel Corp. may report a loss in the first quarter, breaking a more than 21-year run of profitability, Chief Executive Paul Otellini told employees. "We are not going to wake up in six months with everything rosy again," Otellini wrote last week in an internal memo obtained by Bloomberg News. After 87 quarters of profit, the first quarter is "too close to call," the memo said. Slumping demand for personal computers has forced Intel to run its factories below capacity, making them less profitable.

Intel Corp., the world's biggest maker of semiconductors, cut the price of some processors by as much as 48% as it confronts slumping demand and new lower-cost chips from Advanced Micro Devices Inc. The price of the Celeron 570 processor, designed for laptops, dropped 48% to $70, Intel said Monday. One of the company's quad-core desktop-computer models, which have four processors on one piece of silicon, dropped 40% to $316.