Tánaiste Mary Harney announces Intel's new research project at Intel Communications Europe, East Park, Shannon

INTEL COMMUNICATIONS EUROPE launches €18.6 million Research & Development initiative - `Westport Project'

"One of the largest R&D projects in Ireland in recent times" - Harney

Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Mary Harney today (Friday, June 13, 2003) visited Intel Communications Europe base in Shannon to announce the €18.6 million `Westport' project, which is the development of a next generation Network processor for the Intel Communications Group. This project is aimed at the emerging 3G, wireless access and high speed broadband markets and is positioned to significantly extend Intel's Network processor offering and product leadership in these key market segments.

The Westport project will extend the role of the Network processor throughout the communications industry. It provides a quantum leap in silicon technology and user programmability through its use of advanced techniques to manage data at "wire speed" while allowing vital functions such as encryption and authentication to run simultaneously.

Making the announcement, the Tánaiste underlined how important this project is to Ireland. She said: "The Intel Communications Europe `Westport' project is one of the largest R&D projects undertaken in Ireland in recent times, and is exactly the type of knowledge driven project that the Government aims to encourage under its R&D Capability Programme. A primary objective of the Programme is to support serious high level R&D activities by the leading global companies based in Ireland, and thereby upgrade the technological capability and competitiveness of their Irish operations."

"This project demonstrates what can be achieved in successfully establishing leading edge R&D capabilities in the regions. Furthermore, the latest generation network processors which will be designed in Shannon, as a result of this investment, may well become the first processors to be manufactured at Intel's new wafer fabrication plant at Leixlip, further consolidating Ireland's status as a first tier ICT global location," she added.

The Tánaiste also announced that under the Government's R&D Capability Grant Scheme, Intel Communications Europe would receive a €3.1 million grant towards the project. This grant scheme is designed to encourage companies to build up their R&D function and expand this competence through participation by Irish based research & development engineers in leading edge projects.

Peter MacNamara, Managing Director of Intel Communications Europe, praised the role of Shannon Development in securing this project, "The combination of the support of Shannon Development and the technical assessment by Enterprise Ireland staff allowed us to win this important grant. We were able to demonstrate how our advanced development team and the knowledge gained from previous successful software and silicon designs clearly positioned Shannon as a centre for advanced development projects such as Westport"

Jim OHara, Vice President TMG and general manager Intel Ireland said at the announcement, "This is another excellent example of Intel executing high value engineering developments in Ireland with a highly talented group of software and IC engineers. I would like to acknowledge the cooperation and support of the Irish education community and in particular the very close relationship with the University of Limerick where we continue to hire Masters and PhD graduates who are key to our long term future in research and development work. This project further establishes Intel Communications Europe as a global player by positioning Ireland as one of the key locations for innovative technological design for its future communications products."

Kevin Thompstone, Chief Executive of Shannon Development, said "R&D projects of the scale and significance of the `Westport' project are vital if we are to compete in the global knowledge economy. We are delighted to have supported the establishment of Intel Communications Europe in Shannon and look forward to working with them on many more `Westports' in the future".

Notes for Editors

The significant aspects of the Westport design are:

First use of 90 nanometre technology for network processor design
First release of customer programmable micro-Engine software technology
First design capable of harnessing the capability & performance of Intel's XScale processor technology and the power of individual network processor engines (NPEs) and micro-Engines (mEs). These NPEs/mEs will form the heart of all next generation ICG communications devices and will allow speeds of up to 10 Gbps to be achieved by very low cost/low power silicon devices

In choosing Shannon as the worldwide design centre for Westport, Intel management has confirmed the confidence already established by the success of previous designs based here. This will position Shannon as the premier design centre for new network processor technologies based on 90nm and equips the Intel R&D team with the key leading edge skill-sets required to extend these technologies even further.

Intel Communications Europe

Intel Communications Europe located in Shannon, Co. Clare employs in excess of 100 staff and hosts both the Shannon Development Centre and Shannon Business Centre. The Shannon Development Centre is the European R&D arm of Network Processor Division and is dedicated to the design and development of advanced software and silicon technology for use with Intel's family of Network Processors. These devices are now being designed into the majority of telecommunications access and switching products used by Telco's to run the internet, high speed broadband, wireless access and emerging 3G networks.

The Shannon Business Centre assists Intel's Communications Group with strategic business direction for its European operations and provides technical and marketing support for European customers and the Europe/Middle East/Africa field. All major European customers are directly supported from Shannon, these include 5 of the top 7 of the world's largest Telecommunications manufacturers

Intel, the world's largest chip maker, is also a leading manufacturer of computer, networking and communications products. Additional information about Intel is available at www.intel.com/pressroom.