Irish Intel chips get fertiliser

GROWER OF SEMICONDUCTOR WAFERS Intel had to shut part of its Irish plant for a while because of the extreme cold and the fact the local council polluted the water supply with fertiliser.

Apparently it got down to -12 degrees C at the Intel plant in Leixlip, County Kildare. We are surprised they didn't power up a few old P4 chips to get the place toasty in minutes.

But to make matters worse, the local council ran out of rock salt to grit the roads and opted for fertiliser instead. There were fears that ammonia and nitrates in the fertiliser might have contaminated the local water supply.

The problem for the chipmaker is that it needs extremely pure water for its manufacturing processes and, while it tests water purity onsite, it did not really expect to have to spot ammonia and now has to send water samples offsite.

While the water was pure enough for drinking it was not good enough to use for making semiconductor chips.

Production at Intel's Fab 10 plant was shut down while the issue was resolved. A number of sources have confirmed the shutdown.

However Chipzilla's Fab 24 which produces the latest chips was unaffected by the incident. µ