Intel - more jobs in Israel
Intel - more jobs in IsraelIsrael news photo: Flash 90

Unemployed? No future in Silicon Valley? Intel again has hung out the “help wanted” sign in Israel, where it is recruiting 1,000 new workers this year for nanometer technology that produces semiconductors.

The giant chip maker also announced it is investing $2.7 billion over the next two years at its Kiryat Gat facility, located between Be’er Sheva and metropolitan Tel Aviv.

During the introduction of the nanometer technology, “There will be an exchange of machinery that will lower the pace of production while we are bringing in the machinery with new technology at the same time,” according to Intel’s general manager in Israel, Maxine Fassberg.

Intel already is one of Israel’s largest private employers, with more than 7,000 employees. Fassberg claims that the company indirectly provided jobs for an additional 20,000 people.

Intel has been operating in Israel for 25 years, and Israeli computer engineers at Intel's Israel Development Center in Haifa have been overseeing the development of processor microarchitecture for next generation personal computers in a special project that began in 2005.

Intel unveiled the architecture of that project, dubbed Sandy Bridge, earlier this month at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.  One of the new features will be the ability to remotely disable one's PC or erase information from hard drives, useful in case of theft or loss.

Shlomit Weiss, the architect of Sandy Bridge, told Globes that the project included more than 1,000 software engineers.