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Monday, September 10, 2012

The Highs and Lows of Oregon's High Tech Firms

Today's post summarizes both good news and bad news for high-tech companies in the Portland metro area.


First the good news: 
Jireh Semiconductor, Inc. recently announced that they would keep 250 manufacturing jobs in Oregon, rather than outsourcing them to Asia. The company, which is owned by Alpha and Omega Semiconductor, will rely on a newly acquired wafer fabrication facility in Hillsboro to manufacture their products. Former employees of Integrated Device Technology, from which the plant was bought, will be re-trained on Jireh's production processes. Learn more in the full article, published by the Coast River Business Journal.

And now the bad news: 
Intel's third quarter sales and profits will fall $1 billion or more below expectations due to a slump in demand for personal computers. The company is now forecasting a 7.2 percent decline in sales over the year as customer orders drop and more people move toward mobile devices. Intel also cut its annual investment forecast down to $12.1 billion from $12.9 billion, citing plans to re-use current equipment to manufacture new chips. Intel employs 16,000 in Oregon, and manufactures over 80 percent of the world's microprocessors. Get more details from the company's press release.

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