A Supportive Environment for
High Value Manufacturing
Interview with Eamonn Sinnott, Country General Manager
& Vice President, Technology Manufacturing Group, Intel Corporation
When one considers something so pervasive as
the computer chip, its ubiquity means that it is
sometimes possible to overlook the complexity of
its creation. It wasn’t until I was taken on a tour
of Intel Ireland’s massive manufacturing plant on
the outskirts of Dublin, that I stopped to consider
the ironically enormous job that it is to create
something so small, and yet so powerful.
The thumbnail-size semiconductor is the ‘brain’
of the computer. Billions of tiny connections
within these silicon wafers facilitate the transfer
of information so instantaneously that they have
given birth to that most essential of all modern
conveniences - the computer.
The little “Intel” sticker on your laptop
indicates that the semiconductor that runs it was
manufactured in either Oregon, New Mexico,
Massachusetts, Arizona, China, Israel or … Leixlip,
Co. Kildare.
Upon entering the gargantuan facility, the true
meaning of “high value manufacturing” became
clear. The processes that utilise nanotechnology
to produce the crucial components take place in an
environment up to ten thousand times cleaner than
an operating theatre.
Eamonn Sinnott, Intel Ireland’s new Country
General Manager is in buoyant mood, having spent
the preceding evening at an event with Bill Clinton.
Like Clinton, he is cognizant that the country faces
fiscal problems, but steadfast in his opinion that
these are challenges that can be overcome by the
dynamism of the Irish people and the facilitative
environment.