Intel Corp's US$2.5-billion wafer plant in Dalian will start operation in the first half of 2010 and it may adopt more-advanced technology than expected, the factory's general manager Kirby Jefferson said yesterday in Shanghai.

Intel, the world's leading chip maker, plans to hire a total of 1,200 staff, including "a couple of hundred" experienced workers, for the factory.

Intel began large-scale recruitment this year, according to Jefferson, who hopes to hire some experienced engineers from Shanghai.

The plant covers 163,000 square meters of factory space, including a 15,000-square-meter "clean room."

China is Intel's No. 2 market globally and it will surpass the United States to become the biggest soon, according to Li Ke, an analyst at Beijing-based CCID Consulting Co, a research firm under the Ministry Information Industry. Intel has got approval from the US government to make chipsets based on 90-nanometer or the more advanced 65-nanometer technologies in China.

Jefferson said it will choose one of the two technologies in about a year.

(Shanghai Daily February 22, 2008)