In an effort to show why it still pays to own chip making plants, Intel invited several dozens of media and analyst to its Ronler Acres Campus in Hillsboro, OR.

An impressive line-up of Intel executives were scheduled to make the case. And while they made a strong argument as to why it pays not to outsource, the bigger question remained unanswered: why still do this in the US?

Oregon senator Gordon Smith in a presentation told that Intel has previously stated that the company pays a 1 billion dollar tax "penalty" for every fab that the company builds in the US. (Mind you that a fab costs about 5 billion dollars).

Yet Intel has all but one (Ireland) of its 300mm wafer fabs in the US…

By the way, Intel did give us a quick window tour in its D1D factory. The plant was opened a in 2002 and is the first fully automated chip factory: no people are involved in the actual chip making process.

I'd love to have put up photos here, but cameras were strictly forbidden. Security was somewhat of an issue to begin with – leading Intel to have a security guard escort visitors to the restroom and causing a complete lack of internet access during the event.

Tags: Intel