I visited their fab in Israel. Amazing place and they are Israel's top high tech employee.
This is highly technical, high R&D stuff. Only their fabs in the US and a few other places (Israel, Ireland) can do that. But, in Israel they get preferential tax treatment (because otherwise they will leave and go to Ireland or the US).
So I wonder what would have happened had Trump not been president, or alternatively, what tax breaks he promised.
> It was announced by former Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini during a visit by U.S. President Barack Obama to an Intel facility in Hillsboro, Oregon, and was highlighted by Obama as an example of U.S. manufacturing potential.
Intel contributed $600 million (perhaps in tax breaks?) for the latest fab upgrade to 10 nm. It also has two design centers and altogether employs about 10,000 Iraelis.
Intel first started in Israel around 1974-ish with a small design center. Dov Frohman, who invented the flash memory for Intel, convinced Intel to start the design center in Israel when there was an engineering shortage in the US.
Judging by the current Israeli governments recent laws (passing a law to legalise the grabbing of private Palestinian land that even the Supreme Court said was a bad idea), it's likely there is going to be a lot of political problems in the next few years for companies making big investments in Israel. The boycott movement is really heating up. Israeli tech talent and industry is excellent but so far it has managed to avoid political effects, that probably isn't going to last forever.
