The U.S. Department of Commerce has awarded Intel Corp. $7.86 billion for its commercial semiconductor manufacturing projects under the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act.

The award supports Intel’s previously announced plans to advance semiconductor manufacturing and advanced packaging projects at its sites in Oregon, Arizona, New Mexico and Ohio. Intel also plans to claim the U.S. Treasury Department’s Investment Tax Credit, which is expected to be up to 25 percent of qualified investments of more than $100 billion.

“With Intel 3 already in high-volume production and Intel 18A set to follow next year, leading-edge semiconductors are once again being made on American soil,” Pat Gelsinger, CEO of Intel, said in a news release.

Since the passage of the CHIPS and Science Act more than two years ago, Intel has announced plans to invest more than $100 billion in the U.S. to expand chipmaking and advanced packaging capacity and capabilities critical to economic and national security.

In Oregon, Intel plans to invest more than $36 billion in Hillsboro, which will enable the company to deliver industry-leading process technology beyond 2025. The new funding will support Intel’s plans to modernize its technology development facilities to support the development and production of future process nodes.

Intel’s programs and partnerships in Oregon include:

• National Science Foundation: Intel committed $50 million toward a $100 million partnership with the NSF to expand semiconductor-related education across the country, including in Oregon.
• K-12: Intel engages local K-12 schools and community colleges to build a STEAM education pipeline.
• Engineers Week: Since 2018, Intel has partnered with Portland Metro STEM to host two days of hands-on learning in Beaverton and Hillsboro fourth grade classrooms, reaching more than 2,200 students, to teach about the design-thinking engineering process.
• Junior Achievement: Intel partners with Junior Achievement to provide hands-on learning opportunities to students in Oregon. A discovery center will provide experiential learning for work readiness and personal finance to students from fourth grade through high school in Clatsop, Columbia, Tillamook and Washington counties.
• Quick Start: Intel collaborates with Worksystems, Portland Community College, Worksource, Washington County and the City of Hillsboro through the two-week Quick Start program that includes accelerated career preparation and hands-on learning for future technicians. The program aims to increase opportunity for underrepresented groups and women in the field. As of October 2024, 27 Quick Start classes have finished, with more than 200 graduates hired from the program.
• AI for Workforce: This program has expanded into Oregon at Umpqua Community College to create a pathway for AI mechanics and technicians in a virtual setting. Intel is collaborating with faculty at Portland Community College to bring the program to their schools.
• Microelectronics: Intel partners with Portland Community College on a microelectronics program.

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Intel has shared plans to advance its semiconductor technology development facilities at the Gordon Moore Park at Ronler Acres in Hillsboro. The campus is Intel‘s innovation hub for semiconductor research, technology development and manufacturing in the United States.

The Hillsboro facility is at 2501 NE Century Blvd. in Hillsboro.

This undertaking is possible with support from the state of Oregon, city of Hillsboro and Washington County, and in anticipation of support from the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act, an Intel news release states.

The investments in Intel’s Oregon research and development and manufacturing operations are part of Intel’s plans to invest more than $100 billion in the U.S. over a five-year period, CEO Pat Gelsinger said at September’s Intel Innovation event.

Plans include ongoing advancement of the company’s existing technology development facilities at the Gordon Moore Park campus, bringing a high-numerical aperture extreme ultraviolet lithography tool online, and initiation of the application process for permits to enable a potential future multibillion-dollar expansion to Intel’s research and development and manufacturing capacity.

These investments would support several thousand new permanent and construction jobs, the news release states.

Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek joined Intel executives on Monday in Hillsboro in celebration of Intel’s commitment.

Hillsboro is the heart of Intel’s research and technology development, accounting for 4 percent of statewide employment and helping to position the city and county as the center of Oregon’s growing technology industry with a vast network of local suppliers and contractors to support operations. Intel’s site in Oregon is the company’s largest, with more than 22,000 employees.

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With the COVID-19 pandemic spreading rapidly across the United States, states are restricting public movement and shutting down swaths of the business sector.

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown on Monday ordered citizens to essentially stay in their homes and leave only for work, supplies or medical necessity. However, a number of industries – including construction – were declared essential and allowed to stay open, subject to stringent social distancing and safety practices recommended by Oregon OSHA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In the Portland-metro area, builders are proceeding. But they’re taking measures to try and prevent the spread of the virus.

The big question is: Are such actions enough?

On Tuesday, Hoffman Construction Vice President Dan Drinkward confirmed that a subcontractor’s employee working on a project at Intel’s Ronler Acres campus in Hillsboro tested positive for COVID-19.

“The worker had limited contact with other employees,” Drinkward stated in the email. “He was working on the exterior of the building. The individuals he had contact with have been notified and are self-quarantining. All workers on site were notified yesterday.”

A change in routine has since taken place at the site, said Willy Myers, executive secretary and treasurer for the Columbia Pacific Building Trades Council, an organization that represents trade unions in and around the Portland-metro area.

“We’ve taken some pretty extreme actions out at Intel for social distancing measures that have been recommended by CDC and OSHA,” he said. “We’re taking those actions and encouraging the general contractors to also take those actions. We want our members to be safe and not be exposed. But we’re not going to overreact either.”

New protocols call for sanitized buses to transport workers to the site, and common areas used by workers on the site to be sanitized at least three times a day. Even the lunch tents, which normally have space for some 2,500 workers, now have spots marked with tape six feet apart for people to sit and eat.

Workers’ shifts have been staggered to prevent too many people from clustering together, while jobsite meeting sizes have been limited and the number of people allowed in man lifts and elevators has been cut.

Hoffman Construction has been implementing an increasing array of safety measures on jobsites over the past several weeks, Drinkward said.

“It’s an extremely dynamic situation,” he said. “We’ve been increasing our social distancing measures over the last 10 days and we’re constantly evaluating what we’re doing. In addition to following CDC and OSHA guidelines, we’re constantly talking about this as a company and getting feedback from people and trying to improve.”

The situation is anything but normal, Drinkward said.

“We’re taking pretty extraordinary measures, and where we’re not going to operate safely, we’re not going to do it,” he said.

Intel has done a “phenomenal job” of taking care of workers, said Jim Anderson, business manager for Operating Engineers Local 701. Its members are running several large tower cranes on the jobsite.

“They’re such a good player,” he said. “And a lot of the contractors are as well. They changed to the staggered lunches and a lot of other measures. And we said, ‘You guys do what you gotta do so we can keep people employed and have a safe jobsite.’ These are special circumstances and special times, and everybody’s coming together. The thing about it is we have to keep building. If it’s safe, we have to keep building,”

Intel’s Ronler Acres is a large jobsite, Myers added, but there’s no reason these protocols can’t be adopted on smaller sites.

“We’re getting the word out,” he said.

Many contractors are taking initiative, such as creating task forces to address the crisis and implementing their own policies. General contractor/construction manager JE Dunn Construction, for instance, has taken multiple coronavirus-related precautions at its jobsites, including adding more handwashing and sanitizing stations, and implementing social distancing for morning stretch-and-flex routines. These were already in place before Brown issued her order, according to Amy Winterowd, a JE Dunn Construction vice president for client solutions.

“Indeed, it’s true that most everything that is already in place remains in place,” she stated in an email. “Things are fluid and we are all responding as rapidly as possible.”

Nevertheless, some workers are questioning why jobsites remain open. One who provided comments on condition of anonymity said that keeping crowded jobsites safe from spread of infection isn’t feasible.

“We have many older workers, and construction is impossible for social distancing,” one electrician wrote the 91��Ƶ via email. “How is this a good idea during Covid? As long as they’re open, I’ll come get a paycheck, but it seems reckless from the perspective of greater good.”

Robert Camarillo, executive secretary of the Oregon State Building and Construction Trades Council, said jobsite culture traditionally has been for workers to ignore illness and injury and just keep working. Plus, sick days often are limited. As a result, tradespeople are more hesitant than most to blow the whistle on uncomfortable or even dangerous conditions.

“That’s the type of workforce we develop,” he said. “It’s similar to our first responders; we just power through these things. But what we’re doing is making sure our folks know they don’t have to go to work if they feel sick or don’t want to stay home. That’s why we fought so hard to makes sure unemployment benefits were expanded. With that in place it does give the workers some security to stay at home if they’re impacted by COVID-19.”

In Portland, however, there are few signs of work slowing. The largest sites in the city, including Block 216, various jobs at Portland International Airport and others are running largely as normal.

“It’s so fluid it’s changing daily,” Camarillo said. “Just when you think you have some facts, they change. Obviously these are unprecedented times for us as well, just like everyone else, and we’re doing everything we possibly can to ensure our members are not put in vulnerable places or high-risk places without safety precautions.”

Michelle Brunetto is the safety director for general contractor Bremik Construction, as well as chairwoman of the safety and health council for Associated General Contractors‘ Oregon-Columbia chapter. She told the 91��Ƶ that Bremik and other contractors are enacting many safety measures. They include increasing handwashing stations, minimizing use of enclosed job trailers, sanitizing radios and tools and other objects and hard surfaces multiple times per day, maintaining minimum physical distances between workers on site, and ordering those who feel even slightly sick to stay home.

“We’ve come up with a list of best practices,” Brunetto said. “But this is such a moving target; how do we do this? There’s not a rulebook on this. We haven’t been faced with this before by any stretch of the imagination. So being aware of those types of concerns and trying to head those off as best as possible with continued communication is important.”

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Intel‘s plan to build a third manufacturing facility at its Ronler Acres campus in Hillsboro has an auxiliary parking and utilities project that would be massive by itself.

Intel also proposes the addition of an 862,410-square-foot building that includes a six-story parking structure and water-treatment facility, according to public documents from the city of Hillsboro. That aspect of the project, which is subject to a separate land-use case in Hillsboro, is known as the D1X multipurpose technology facility, or MPTF1. The parking structure would provide approximately 2,200 parking spaces. Planned site improvements also include a cooling tower and pedestrian walkways. The utility structure would include emergency generation, according to the documents.

Wastewater generated from the fabrication process would be treated on-site and discharged according to Intel’s existing wastewater discharge permit issued by Clean Water Services.

A sound wall and landscaping would be added along Shute Road to mitigate the MPTF1 facility’s impact on neighbors.

The parking and utilities building would accompany the manufacturing expansion, known as Mod3. The third manufacturing building would add 1.51 million square feet to an existing two-building, 2.46 million-square-foot manufacturing facility where Intel makes semiconductors. The three buildings would maintain independent mechanical and electrical utilities.

In January, the state Private Activity Bond Committee approved for the project $120 million in tax-exempt bonding that will be leveraged along with a $30 million allocation from the Oregon Business Development Department for a $150 million bond issuance this spring.

Jacobs Engineering is the architect and engineer for the project. Mackenzie conducted an extensive traffic analysis.

The city of Hillsboro released 240 pages of internal email messages in response to a Daily Journal of Commerce public records request. The messages show the city working with Intel to move toward approval while assuaging residents’ concerns about traffic.

“We are committed to turning around the Development Review approval as quickly as possible,” Hillsboro transportation planner Don McDermott wrote in a Jan. 29 email message to Intel and Mackenzie managers.

James Evenson of Orenco Station wrote that Intel “has acted in good faith to mitigate traffic issues.” Evenson recommended installation of flashing sidewalk beacons and “no through traffic” signs around Orenco Station to minimize traffic headaches for local residents.

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PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Intel has acknowledged it will soon start building a massive new semiconductor factory in Hillsboro.

The Oregonian/OregonLive reports the company told about 50 residents living near its Ronler Acres campus that it will build a third phase of its massive D1X manufacturing complex, confirming a newspaper report last month.

Intel also said it plans a new technology building to support the factory with emergency generators, utilities and additional parking.

Intel was vague on details, including the project’s exact size and timing. Hillsboro city officials say the chipmaker recently submitted construction permitting applications but the city has yet to fulfill public records requests for the documents.

The chipmaker says it plans to start work in Hillsboro sometime in 2019 but plans remain contingent on unspecified business and economic factors.

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A Portland-based contractor is appealing a judge’s decision to throw out a copyright infringement claim against Hoffman Construction and Intel.

Harder Mechanical Contractors‘ attorney Lisa Lear of The Rosen Law Firm confirmed the company is pursuing an appeal, but the company’s in-house counsel declined to comment.

The case concerns the use of proprietary/confidential information in construction. Often they include technology or pricing that a subcontractor doesn’t want made public.

“It isn’t something that often gets discussed,” said attorney Jeremy Vermilyea, who is not involved with the case.

The issue typically arises, Vermilyea said, from government contracts awarded for projects with a technical component, like a tolling system for a bridge or a security system, etc., and unsuccessful bidders seek disclosure of the winning bid.

Contractors do this partly to try to get access to the technology or the pricing structure or other parts of the proposal, Vermilyea said. They can try because the presumption is that government records are open to the public unless they fall into exception to disclosure. That sets up a battle between the successful and unsuccessful bidders.

It isn’t often seen for private contracts because the information isn’t presumptively a public record, Vermilyea said. However, in the Hoffman/Intel situation, there is a dispute going on, which means documents are being sought and exchanged through discovery.

Intel was represented in court by Stoel Rives attorney Jeffrey Courser and Hoffman, by Dan Gragg of Seifer, Yeats, Zwierzynski & Gragg.

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When several large projects in the Portland-metro area concluded around the same time in late 2014, more than 600 union electricians were left out of work. Now the region’s largest electricians union is finally ready to resume training new apprentices, after a full year without adding one.

Gary Young, business manager for International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 48 (4,500 members), said work has picked up and that he hopes to start taking applications for low-voltage and sound-and-communications apprentice electricians after Jan. 1. Last week, only eight apprentice electricians were “available for work;” the high was about 80 a year ago.

He and other union representatives said electricians sitting out a construction boom is just another example why the building industry is so hard to fathom.

“We had a good run for about five years,” Young said. “Then things slowed down. Now they’re looking more promising and we’re getting ready to get more people back to work.”

Young referred to a string of large projects that began around the tail end of the Great Recession – data centers, TriMet‘s orange line and a massive expansion project at Intel‘s Ronler Acres campus in Hillsboro. After work stopped, hundreds of union electricians were added to its out-of-work list, Young said. By this time, open-shop firms were already at work at many of the other big job sites around town.

Young said it’s not fair to ask someone to take months off while learning a trade.

“With no work, there’s no need to bring on apprentices,” said Drew Lindsey, Young’s counterpart for IBEW Local 280 south of the Portland area.

The demand for electricians was so great at Intel’s campus, Lindsey and many others from Local 280 traveled to work on the project. Then, suddenly, it was over.

“That left a lot of people scrambling,” Lindsey said. “But in time this will all work itself out and people will go where they need to go.”

Under the Taft-Hartley Act, the cost of training apprentices must be split evenly between management and labor unions. Tim Gauthier is executive manager of NECA, the management arm of the local electrical trade, with 110 contractors represented. He said there are “no guarantees” that an apprentice will roll through training unimpeded, even during a construction boom like the one Portland is experiencing.

“It’s a funny cycle we go through,” he said.

Nike is preparing for a large expansion project, and other work exists on the horizon as well, union reps said. They expressed confidence that work at Intel’s campus will resume soon. Outfitting high-tech production facilities can keep a lot more electricians busy for a long time.

“The industry is really waiting for that one to come back,” Gauthier said.

Intel spokeswoman Chelsea Hossaini said construction at the Ronler Acres campus in Hillsboro is “ongoing through 2015,” but declined to provide specifics about work stoppages. She said the company doesn’t favor union labor over open-shop, but rather relies on a variety of contractors.

Up-and-down is just the nature of the building industry, and contractors always structure their crews based on current needs, according to John Mohlis, executive secretary of the Oregon State Building and Construction Trades Council. Managing the rolls of a large labor union is made more challenging by a need to constantly train new members through lengthy apprenticeships.

“It’s not a perfect science,” he said.

According to Mohlis, while electricians were hit hard by the slowdown at Intel, other trades were not. Likewise, electricians weren’t hit as hard by the completion of TriMet’s orange line, which he said disproportionately affected general labor unions, cement workers and bridge builders.

With the average wage for electricians falling between $30 and $40 per hour, the trade keeps attracting people, according to Young. But because of uncertainties embedded in the industry, apprentices must be flexible. Young, for one, is trained as a wildland firefighter; he plies the trade during the occasional long spells between jobs.

“Everybody works as long as they can, when they can,” he said.

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Work is slowing at Intel‘s D1X facility and it is having an effect on at least one segment of the construction industry.

“There has been a reduction in force at Intel,” said Frank Wall, executive director at the Plumbing and Mechanical Contractors Association of Oregon. “Most of the travelers that came into town to work there have headed out of town. The big ramp up is over. There won’t be the big phase that we had before.”

Thirty-two apprentices have been laid off from the Intel job site in the last couple of weeks, Wall said. The union has decided to stop accepting new apprentices until work picks up, Wall said.

“That’s one of my gauges,” Wall said. “No one is asking for apprentices. That’s the first time in a couple of years that has happened.”

Building and wall equipment contractors had been expecting an Intel drawdown to begin this summer. They anticipate a 22.4 percent drop in PMCA union hours in 2015, when construction of the D1X project will be completed, Wall said.

The laid-off apprentices will likely be moved to other places around the state where work is strengthening, such as Central Oregon, he said.

“When apprentices were out of work in Central Oregon, they came to Portland to work,” he said. “Now, it’s the reverse. We’ll see if they’ll move and relocate where the work is.”

Building equipment contractors, which include PMCA members, had largely fueled the ramp up in construction employment, lost 300 non-seasonally adjusted jobs in June, according to an Oregon Employment Department issued last week.

Overall, the construction industry dropped 4.4 percent in June from 81,800 to 78,200 jobs on a seasonally adjusted basis. Building equipment contractors accounted for roughly 25 percent of the losses, according to David Cooke, an economist with the department.

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Intel Corp. and a Portland property developer are looking to “hack” into the minds of urban planners.

On May 31, Intel’s Innovation Lab and the Zidell Companies will team up to host in Portland the second , which aims to bring people together to solve community problems. The events, organized in concert with the White House and other federal agencies in more than 90 U.S. cities, are intended to spur creation of technological items that support livability – such as an app that allows drivers to report potholes, or a software platform that facilitates distribution of affordable housing.

The May 31 event in Portland will take place at Zidell Yards, at 3121 S.W. Moody Ave., from 1 to 4 p.m. Brandon Barnett, director of business innovation at Intel, said in a prepared statement that the 33-acre property at the South Waterfront offered an “incredibly unique” opportunity to “brainstorm how innovation might be built into the area’s design, development and overall culture.”

In September 2012, the Zidell family unveiled an ambitious master plan for development of the waterfront site, and in fall 2013 it opened its first mixed-use building there.

Barnett said Intel anticipates approximately 75 to 100 people to attend the “hackathon” event. People are invited to participate in specific team challenges, or simply observe the effort.

More information is available at .

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Workers with one of the state’s largest labor unions on Sunday voted to approve terms of a new contract, averting a potential strike that could have halted work at sites from Portland to Eugene.

Plumbers & Steamfitters Local 290, which has more than 4,000 members throughout Oregon, Southwest Washington and Northern California, to approve a two-year contract with the Plumbing and Mechanical Contractors Association. It represents more than 250 plumbing and mechanical contractors in the region.

The prevailing wage rate for most Oregon counties will increase by $2.75 per hour for each of the next two years.

“I think both sides probably aren’t satisfied,” said Frank Wall, PMCA’s executive director. “When both sides aren’t satisfied, it’s probably a good contract.”

Labor and management representatives disagreed over prospects, including the expected drawdown at Intel‘s D1X expansion in Hillsboro. Contractors believed that with work slowing, increasing wages would make landing work significantly more difficult, Wall said.

Labor reps believed the opposite. Local 290’s business manager, Al Shropshire, disputed PMCA’s contention that a slowdown of work at Intel would lead to fewer profits and man-hours in 2015.

“We believe you are making record profits,” Shropshire said, according to March 25 meeting minutes. He declined to comment on the results of the vote.

Other projects, such as the state capitol renovation and Oregon Health & Science University and Portland Community College construction, would contribute to “lots of work coming up,” Shropshire said in the minutes.

The two sides, who have met 17 times since mid-January, were far apart last month. The PMCA’s proposal at the time – raising wages by $1.40 an hour for two years and $1.50 an hour over the third year – was rejected nearly unanimously by union members at a March 30 meeting. They then authorized a strike in the event of a breakdown in negotiations.

Labor reps had sought a $3.50 an hour raise over that same time period, down from an initial request of $4.25 an hour, according to the minutes.

Both sides agreed April 4 to a cooling-off period that ultimately generated an agreement last week.

Many contractors had prepared for a potential work stoppage.

“We notified our contractors to get dual gates that would have been set up so that they could continue working,” said Robin Edgar, labor relations manager for Associated General Contractors‘ Oregon-Columbia chapter.

AGC, which negotiates with five major trades, including teamsters and carpenters’ unions, had a no-strike, no-lockout clause in its contracts; sympathy strikes would be in violation, Edgar said.

“We notified them – this was not our fight and to report to work,” she said.

Wall acknowledged that the relationship between labor and management interests has been marked by distrust over the past several years.

As part of the negotiations, the PMCA and Local 290 will go through a two-year process of relationship building before the new contract expires March 31, 2016. Both sides agreed to hire a facilitator, Richard Barnes, who will lead a healing process for future negotiations, Wall said.

Barnes, principal of Lawrenceville, Ga.-based C. Richard Barnes and Associates LLC, has settled labor and management disputes across the country.

“What’s happened in the negotiations is both sides go to the table with skepticism and lack of trust,” Wall said. “Richard Barnes teaches you how to listen to each other.”

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