Are Intel’s investments making a dent in our dependence on foreign semiconductors?

People make great deal of hoopla over Intel’s investments in its new $20 billion semiconductor chip plant¹ near Columbus, Ohio, which Intel claims could expand into a $100 billion complex with eight fabrication facilities (fabs).  This is of course great news, and pundits are now proclaiming that Intel’s great feat marks the rise of the new Silicon Heartland.² But, we will need to be patient!  Building a semiconductor plant takes more than two years on average -- and often involves painstaking equipment installation, clean room validation, and lots of “copy exactly” procedures -- an Intel mantra to do things the same as you did it last time, because it works.³