Intel in Costa Rica is closely guarded. One has to go through a gate and there is a sign that vehicles will be searched. What they are guarding here is not only electronic products, but new technology. At Intel we were met by a young local representative German Cortes Villalobos, who gave us a great presentation on the products Intel manufactures and Intel Costa Rica.

On the way to the presentation room we passed though the show room filled with different products Intel manufactures or supplies components for: tablets, cellphones, servers, gaming equipment and more.

Intel Costa Rica comprises of three campuses, where new products are manufactured, assembled and developed.  The site we visited had at least three large buildings. The main reasons for opening a plant in Costa Rica include: educated population with qualified engineers, good roads and reliable transportation to the airport, investment incentive zone. Intel provides technical and customer support. They manufacture 2 million products a week. The manufacturing campus is situated next to a water source, because water is necessary for manufacture. Intel is a leading chip manufacturer, yet 5 years ago they added services. Intel partners with Motorola, Apple and is negotiating with Amazon. Intel now manufactures memories, hardware, mother boards and more.

The company began in the seventies in Silicon Valley, manufacturing memories for calculators and progressed to large mainframe computers. The company typical cycle is to develop for a year and manufacture the next year. In order to fit more information on a chip the technology is now moving toward a three D method.

Intel powerful computer Xeon provides super computers that enable simulation and new drug discovery. The computers are used for animation. For instance a 3 second 3 D animation of the new movie Kung Fu Panda takes one week to render. The same technology is used for nuclear weapon simulation and development. Other uses of supercomputers are in vehicle production, where the computers are used as virtual wind tunnel and technology enables vehicles to drive without a driver.

Weather prediction, aviation, fashion design are other advanced uses of computer that Intel is involved in.

Computers are now also used in restaurants to take orders A la Carte. Architecture and gaming is now possible on the tablets.

We were also shown a video that demonstrated the size of the chip, smaller than a human cell. Wow – great presentation.