Made in China- do we care?

[GLC1968]

I think the Intel chips are made/designed in the USA - anyone know for sure?

Not exclusively. And electronics are a very good example of how global our economy has become.

Take an example from my company - we make some WLAN power amplifiers for Intel that go into their cards that are used in laptops made by other companies. Our tiny little PA's are designed in the US. The wafers that our die are made of are sourced sometimes in the US and sometimes overseas (often european companies). The wafers come here to Oregon where we fabricate those wafers into electronic die. The die then get shipped to other locations (Malaysia, China, Korea, etc) to get bonded and molded into tiny packaged parts (the size of mini chocolate chip). Those packaged parts then get shipped to other locations to be tested and sealed into reels (sometimes those locations are right back in the US). Then the reels get shipped to the companies that make the boards (or mini cards) for Intel - often in places such as Isreal, India or China. Then, from there...they go somewhere else to get assembled into laptops and other such user end goods.

So to say that any electronic device is made in any single country is 100% misleading. Even if you were to build your own electronic device of some sort in your own private ham radio shop in your basement...90% of the parts you'd need would be fabricated at multiple locations around the world.

I work for a manufacturer where we employ thousands of US citizens here in Oregon, in Texas, in Florida, in CA and in Massachusetts...and yet not a single product we make is EVER labeled 'made in the USA'. Think about that for a minute.

Take what you buy and how it is labled with a grain of salt. Be as educated as you can about the choices you make but recognize that we live in a global economy and nothing short of a massive world catastrophy is going to change that anytime soon.

[NbyNW]

Thanks GLC! I had an inkling it was a process involving many entities, but couldn't really speak to it.