Intel puts its new Arizona processor plant on hold

Intel has put on hold a new chip manufacturing facility at its site in Chandler, Arizona, leaving the new space available for unspecified future technology. The company said in February 2011 it was investing over US$5 billion in the new Fab 42, which was expected to be completed last year. The fab was to begin operations on a process that would allow the chipmaker to create transistors with a minimum feature size of 14 nanometers.

Intel Corp. (INTC), the world’s largest chipmaker, said it will delay opening a new factory in Arizona amid a slump in demand for personal-computer microprocessors, its main source of revenue. The completed Chandler plant, called Fab 42, hasn’t been filled with chipmaking gear, Chuck Mulloy, a spokesman for Intel, said yesterday in a telephone interview. The Santa Clara, California-based company decided to first upgrade the three other factories on the site because they can use existing equipment, he said.