Studio Press

Set up 15 years ago, the Intel Penang Design Centre has grown into a world-class design centre with a workforce of 1,000 local design and development engineers.The centre was responsible for designing 72 percent of the components and chips for desktop and laptop computers for the world market last year.Intel Corp's mobility group vice president Richard Malinowski said starting five years ago, the centre had shown its progress with Malaysian engineers involved in designing and developing the technology used for the global market."Last year, about 72 percent of the components and chips for computers worldwide were designed here. The engineers here have designed and created the most advanced technology for Intel and for users around the world," he said.Speaking to reporters after a meeting with Penang Chief Minister Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon here Friday, Malinowski said the centre is among Intel's top three design centres outside the United States and responsible for designing the latest Pentium microprocessor and advanced personal computer (PC) chipset.When started in 1992, the centre had only 30 engineers who were mainly involved in low-end integrated circuit (IC) design involving microcontroller products, he said.He added that though the centre had only 300 engineers for the past five years, it managed to achieve vast progress and was now hiring 1,000 engineers.Intel Penang Design Centre's director S.K. Fong said engineers at the centre started doing original design for the PC chipset in 2002 and were working on full design of the microprocessor in 2004.He said the design team was now working on new products based on 65-nanometer and 45-nanometer technology.Besides IC design, the centre also runs the largest system validation lab and platform compatibility lab outside Intel US, Fong pointed out."We have already started the groundwork and after that the lab will be responsible for validation of all new Intel microprocessors before introduction to the market," he said.In terms of microprocessor design, the team had worked on the last two generations of the Pentium 4 central processing unit (CPU) codenamed Prescott and Cedarmill, Fong said.He said the team was now working on the next generation Celeron processor which is scheduled to be introduced to the world market early next year.The centre, he added, has won many prestigious awards and was also awarded 18 US patents with another 35 patents accepted for filing by the US Patent Office.Meanwhile, Koh said Intel had invested US$500 million in research and development (R&D) and design activities in the centre for the past five years.-- BERNAMA