‘You are constantly learning, if you stand still you’re actually falling behind’

Athboy native Eamonn McGovern, who joined Intel in 1991 as it first began developing its Leixlip site, has recently been appointed a Vice President with the company.

Eamonn joined Intel in a Product Engineering role and was among the first 100 or so employees to join the Fab 10 project when it started its operation in Ireland more than 30 years ago.

Now living in Kilbride, Eamonn worked his way up through the ranks to his current position as General Manager of manufacturing Quality and Reliability over all of Intel's manufacturing operations worldwide and was delighted to be one of two Irish people recently appointed as vice presidents of Intel Corporation.

Reflecting on his 31-year career with Intel, Eamonn said it had given him great opportunities to travel and learn about leading edge semiconductor technologies and said he was proud to be appointed to the vice president role.

"I'm surprised but quite proud of the fact I was able to get to that level from where I started. It took quite a lot of hard work. The great thing about it was all of the opportunities it gave me to travel and to learn. You are constantly learning, if you stand still you're actually falling behind. You are constantly learning every year. With the technologies Intel are manufacturing, we are at the leading edge so we tend to be breaking new ground on innovation and developing new methodologies, as a result you can't stand still. You have to keep re-educating yourself.

"Hence why we invest so much in sending people on long term assignments to our Technology Development centres to learn the skills that are needed to deliver the technology so successfully in Ireland. We have a lot of success and the fact Intel keep investing in Ireland is also driven by the fact that we have some great people, we execute and that is a big part of why we have been so successful."

Since it first came to Ireland, Intel has invested over €30 billion and its latest expansion will see its workforce grow to 6,500 when Fab 34- its latest and fifth factory module is completed.

It has come a long way since the start of its Fab 10 project to build its first factory manufacturing wafer chips in Ireland.

"I never could have seen that far out and how big it would grow. The investment in general has been enormous. I couldn't have envisaged setting out in 1991 that I would still be working in Intel and secondly that I would have achieved what I achieved. It's been amazing. I never would have considered leaving. I knew you wouldn't find a better company or get the opportunities I was getting, to learn and grow."

Eamonn grew up in Athboy and he and his four brothers all played hurling and football with the local club, now Clann na Gael. His mother Betty McGovern still lives there though his father Billie sadly passed away in 2018. His brother Sean also still lives locally.

After doing his Leaving Cert in Athboy Vocational School, Eamonn went on to study mechanical engineering at Dundalk IT and his first job was with Fujitsu Microelectronics working in assembly and test operations. He spent almost five years in the job before joining Intel which was in its infancy in Ireland at the time.

"Intel came into Ireland in 1991 and started to hire people at the time. I was fortunate enough to join at the start of the whole operation. At that point they were hiring people and sending them off for field assignments to train and get skilled in wafer fabrication technology. I spent a year and a half in Swindon in the UK in the customer return centre and test operation. Myself and my wife Angela went there and then went to Santa Clara in the Bay area outside San Francisco where we spent another year and a half.

"We were away three years and didn't return until late 1993. We loved it. It was amazing. At that time, it was so exciting, to get those opportunities to travel were rare, and to learn new skills and see different parts of the world you never would have seen. San Francisco is a beautiful city, we did a lot of travel along the coastline down to LA and my mam, dad and Angela’s parents visited us as well and loved it."

Eamonn was away learning about the new technologies while Intel was building its first wafer fabrication, or factory, which took about two years to build and equip. When he came back, he was straight into operations working in product engineering and yield analysis for about five years until the next technology was ready to come on stream.

Again Eamonn and Angela headed off on the field assignment to Santa Clara spending six months there and six months in Phoenix and this time they had their first son Callum travelling with them as a young baby.

Eamonn explained that with each field assignment, you go away and get skilled and then ramp up the new technology here when you come back. After returning from his second field assignment, he moved into a process integration role, entering management in 2002, taking over the quality and reliability team in Ireland.

"I was away on another field assignment then to Oregon and at this stage we had two sons with us and spent a year there. Our third son Zack was born out there. We started up the new technology moving from eight-inch wafers to 12-inch wafers, which was a big transition into new technology in the semi-conductor world."

Eamonn also did a number of shorter field assignments over the summer months to Arizona and New Mexico and then became overall FSM Quality and Reliability manager in 2011, managing all the wafer fabs across Intel network, including fabs in Oregan, New Mexico, Phoenix, Ireland, Israel and China, with all the quality and reliability teams in those factories reporting to him.

In 2016, he also took over assembly test quality and reliability and advanced quality systems to become overall manufacturing and reliability manager taking on assembly testing for all their factories.

"That meant I was managing global organisation across all of Intel's manufacturing footprint both in wafer fab and in assembly test and I did that for about six years. My most recent transition and recognition is that I have been promoted to vice president and general manager overall manufacturing quality and reliability over all of Intel's manufacturing operations."

Eamonn has about 400 people directly reporting to him but overall his workforce are driving Quality and Reliability for Intel’s Manufacturing Operations that has over 25,000 people in manufacturing.

He is very involved in the local community in Kilbride and through the Intel Involved programme has been instrumental in raising close to €100,000 for his local Kilbride GAA club and also Kilbride National School.

His sons Callum (25), Jake (23) and Zack (19) all played with the club and Zack is still playing. Eamonn has also coached many juvenile teams over the years.

The Intel Involved Matching grant programme encourages Intel employees to get involved in their community and for every hour they will give, Intel will match it with $10. The hours are all submitted at the end of year up to a maximum of $10,000 with Eamonn and other local employees reaching this level most years bringing in €7,000 to €8,000 to the club.