Deindividuation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Deindividuation is a concept in social psychology that is generally thought of as the loss of self-awareness in groups, although this is a matter of contention (see below). Sociologists also study the phenomenon of deindividuation, but the level of analysis is somewhat different. For the social psychologist, the level of analysis is the individual in the context of a social situation. As such, social psychologists emphasize the role of internal psychological processes. Other social sciences, such as sociology, are more concerned with broad social, economic, political, and historical factors that influence events in a given society.

Overview

Theories of deindividuation propose that it is a psychological state of decreased self-evaluation and decreased evaluation apprehension causing antinormative and disinhibited behavior. Deindividuation theory seeks to provide an explanation for a variety of antinormative collective behavior, such as violent crowds, lynch mobs, etc. Deindividuation theory has also been applied to genocide and been posited as an explanation for antinormative behavior online and in computer-mediated communications.

Although generally analyzed in the context of negative behaviors, such as mob violence and genocide, deindividuation has also been found to play a role in positive behaviors and experiences. There still exists some variation as to understanding the role of deindividuation in producing anti-normative behaviors, as well as understanding how contextual cues affect the rules of the deindividuation construct. Deindividuation is losing the sense of self in a group.

Major theoretical approaches and history

In contemporary social psychology, deindividuation refers to a diminishing of one's sense of individuality that occurs with behavior disjointed from personal or social standards of conduct. For example, someone who is an anonymous member of a mob will be more likely to act violently toward a police officer than a known individual. In one sense, a deindividuated state may be considered appealing if someone is affected such that he or she feels free to behave impulsively without mind to potential consequences. However, deindividuation has also been linked to "violent and anti-social behavior".

Classic theories

Gustave Le Bon was an early explorer of this phenomenon as a function of crowds. Le Bon introduced his crowd psychology theory in his 1895 publication The Crowd: A study of the Popular Mind. The French psychologist characterized his posited effect of crowd mentality, whereby individual personalities become dominated by the collective mindset of the crowd. Le Bon viewed crowd behavior as "unanimous, emotional, and intellectually weak". He theorized that a loss of personal responsibility in crowds leads to an inclination to behave primitively and hedonistically by the entire group. This resulting mentality, according to Le Bon, belongs more to the collective than any individual, so that individual traits are submerged. The idea of a "group mind" is comparable to the shared autism theory, which holds that individuals within a group may develop shared beliefs that have no basis in reality ("delusions"). Already, Le Bon was tending toward the conception of deindividuation as a state brought on by a lowering of accountability, resulting from a degree of anonymity due to membership within a crowd, where attention is shifted from the self to the more stimulating, external qualities of the group’s action (which may be extreme).

Essentially, individuals of Le Bon's crowd are enslaved to the group's mindset and are capable of conducting the most violent and heroic acts. Le Bon's group-level explanation of behavioral phenomena in crowds inspired further theories regarding collective psychology from Freud, McDougall, Blumer, and Allport. Festinger, Pepitone, and Newcomb revisited Le Bon's ideas in 1952, coining the term deindividuation to describe what happens when persons within a group are not treated as individuals. According to these theorists, whatever attracts each member to a particular group causes them to put more emphasis on the group than on individuals. This unaccountability inside a group has the effect of "reducing inner restraints and increasing behavior that is usually inhibited." Festinger et al., agreed with Le Bon's perception of behavior in a crowd in the sense that they believed individuals do become submerged into the crowd leading to their reduced accountability. However, these relatively modern theorists distinguished deindividuation from crowd theory by reforming the idea that the loss of individuality within a crowd is replaced by the group's mindset. Instead, Festinger et al., argued that the loss of individuality leads to loss of control over internal or moral constraints.

Alternatively, R. C. Ziller (1964) argued that individuals are subject to deindividuation under more specific situational conditions. For instance, he suggested that under rewarding conditions, individuals have the learned incentive to exhibit individualized qualities in order to absorb credit for themselves; whereas, under punishing conditions, individuals have the learned tendency to become deindividuated through submergence into the group as a means of diffusing responsibility.

P. G. Zimbardo (1969) suggested "the expression of normally inhibited behavior" may have both positive and negative consequences. He expanded the proposed realm of factors that contribute to deindividuation, beyond anonymity and loss of personal responsibility, to include: "arousal, sensory overload, a lack of contextual structure or predictability, and altered consciousness due to drugs or alcohol," as well as "altered time perspectives...and degree of involvement in group functioning" Zimbardo postulated that these factors lead to "loss of identity or loss of self-consciousness," which result in unresponsiveness to external stimuli by the individual and the loss of "cognitive control over motivations and emotions." Consequently, individuals reduce their compliance with good and bad sanctions held by influences outside the group.

Zimbardo was consistent with Festinger et al. in his suggestion that loss of individuality leads to a loss of control, causing affected persons to behave intensely and impulsively, having let go of internal restraints. However, he developed this model by specifying the "input variables" (situational factors) that lead to this loss of individuality, as well as the nature of behaviors that result (emotional, impulsive, and regressive). Zimbardo further developed existing deindividuation theory by suggesting these outcome behaviors are "self-reinforcing" and therefore difficult to cease. Moreover, Zimbardo did not restrict his application to group situations; he also applied deindividuation theory to "suicide, murder, and interpersonal hostility."

Contemporary theories

In the late seventies, Ed Diener began to express dissatisfaction with the current deindividuation hypothesis, which he deemed invalid without specific focus on the psychological processes that yield a deindividuated state. Not only was Zimbardo's model deficient in that respect, but the role of his input variables in causing anti-normative behaviors was not uniform. Consequently, Diener took it upon himself to refine Zimbardo's model by specifying further the internal processes which lead to deindividuation. In 1980, he argued that paying attention to one's personal values through self-awareness increases the ability of that person to self-regulate. In a group context, when attention is distributed outward (in line with this model) away from the self, the individual loses the ability to plan his actions rationally and substitutes planned behaviors with a heightened responsiveness to environmental cues. Thus, according to Diener, the reduction of self-awareness is the "defining feature of deindividuation". Diener proposed that the strict focus on anonymity as the primary factor of deindividuation had created an empirical obstacle, calling for a redirection of empirical research on the topic.

While Diener was able to take the focus away from anonymity in the theoretical evolution of deindividuation, he was unable to empirically clarify the function of reduced self-awareness in causing disinhibited behavior. In response to this ambiguity, Prentice-Dunn and Rogers (1982, 1989) extended Diener's model by distinguishing public self-awareness from private self-awareness. Public self-awareness they theorized to be reduced by "accountability cues," like diffusion of responsibility or anonymity. Such factors, according to these theorists, cause members of a crowd to lose a sense of consequences for their actions; thus, they worry less about being evaluated and do not anticipate punishment. Private self-awareness (where attention is shifted away from the self), however, was reduced by "attentional cues," e.g. group cohesiveness and physiological arousal. This reduction leads to "an internal deindividuated state" (comprising decreased private self-awareness and altered thinking as a natural by-product) that causes "decreased self-regulation and attention to internalized standards for appropriate behavior." The "differential self-awareness" theorists suggested both forms of self-awareness could lead to "antinormative and disinhibited behavior" but only the decreased private self-awareness process was in their definition of deindividuation.

SIDE

The most recent model of deindividuation, the social identity model of deindividuation effects (SIDE), was developed by Russell Spears and Martin Lea in 1995. The SIDE model argues that deindividuation manipulations can have the effect of decreasing attention to individual characteristics and interpersonal differences within the group. They outlined their model by explaining that social identity performance can fulfill two general functions:

1. Affirming, conforming, or strengthening individual or group identities.
2. Persuading audiences into adopting specific behaviors.

This model attempts to make sense of a range of deindividuation effects which were derived from situational factors such as group immersion, anonymity, and reduced identifiability. Therefore, deindividuation is the increased salience of a group identity that can result from the manipulation of such factors. The SIDE model is in contrast to other deindividuation explanations which involve the reduced impact of the self. Further explanations by Reicher and colleagues state that deindividuation manipulations affect norm endorsement through not only their impact on self-definition, but also their influence on power relations between group members and their audience.

Classical and contemporary approaches agree on the main component of deindividuation theory, that deindividuation leads to "anti-normative and disinhibited behavior" as seen in Dissociative identity disorder, or split personalities.

Major empirical discoveries

Milgram (1963)

Stanley Milgram's study is a classic study of blind obedience, however, many aspects of this study explicitly illustrate characteristics of situations in which deindividuation is likely to occur. Participants were taken into a room and sat in front of a board of fake controls. They were then told by the experimenter that they were completing a task on learning and that they were to read a list of word pairs to the “learner” and then test the learner on accuracy. The participant then read a word and four possible matches. If the confederate got the match wrong, they were to administer a shock (which was not real, unbeknownst to the participant) from the fake control panel they were sitting in front of. After each wrong answer, the intensity of the shock increased. The participant was instructed by the experimenter to continue to administer the shocks, stating that it was their duty in the experiment. As the voltage increased, the confederate began to complain of pain, yelled out discomfort, and eventually screamed the pain was too much and sometimes they even began to bang on the wall. At the greatest amount of voltage administered, the confederate stopped speaking at all. The results of the study showed that 65 percent of experiment participants administered the experiment's final, and most severe, 450-volt shock. Only 1 participant refused to administer shocks past the 300- volt level. The participants, covered by a veil of anonymity, were able to be more aggressive in this situation than they possibly would have in a normal setting. Additionally, this is a classic example of diffusion of responsibility in that participants looked to an authority figure (the experimenter) instead of being self-aware of the pain they were causing or engaging in self-evaluation which may have caused them to adhere to societal norms.

Philip Zimbardo (1969)

This study prompted Zimbardo to write his initial theory and model of deindividuation based on the results of his research. In one study, participants in the experimental condition were made to be anonymous by being issued large coats and hoods which largely concealed their identity. These New York University women were dressed up like Ku Klux Klan members in groups of four. In contrast, the participants in the control condition wore normal clothes and name tags. Each participant was brought into a room and given the task of “shocking” a confederate in another room at different levels of severity ranging from mild to dangerous (similar to Stanley Milgram's study in 1963.) Zimbardo noted that participants who were in the anonymous condition “shocked” the confederates longer, which would have caused more pain in a real situation, than those in the non-anonymous control group. However, a second study using soldiers was done which showed the exact opposite results. When the soldiers were identifiable, they shocked longer than the unidentifiable soldiers. Zimbardo proposed that as a result of anonymity, the soldiers may have felt isolated from their fellow soldiers. These studies motivated Zimbardo to examine this deindividuation and aggression in a prison setting, which is discussed in the next study listed.

Philip Zimbardo (1971)

Now a more widely recognized study since the publication of his book, The Lucifer Effect, the Stanford Prison Experiment is infamous for its blatant display of aggression in deindividuated situations. Zimbardo created a mock prison environment in the basement of Stanford University’s psychology building in which he randomly assigned 24 men to undertake the role of either guard or prisoner. These men were specifically chosen because they had no abnormal personality traits (e.g.: narcissistic, authoritarian, antisocial, etc.) The experiment, originally planned to span over two weeks, ended after only six days because of the sadistic treatment of the prisoners by the guards. Zimbardo attributed this behavior to deindividuation due to immersion within the group and creation of a strong group dynamic. Several elements added to the deindividuation of both guards and prisoners. Prisoners were made to dress alike, wearing stocking caps and hospital dressing gowns, and also were identified only by a number assigned to them rather than by their name. Guards were also given uniforms and reflective glasses which hid their faces. The dress of guards and prisoners led to a type of anonymity on both sides because the individual identifying characteristics of the men were taken out of the equation. Additionally, the guards had the added element of diffusion of responsibility which gave them the opportunity to remove personal responsibility and place it on a higher power. Several guards commented that they all believed that someone else would have stopped them if they were truly crossing the line, so they continued with their behavior. Zimbardo's prison study would have not been stopped if one of Zimbardo's graduate students, Christina Maslach, had not pointed it out to him.

Diener, Fraser, Beaman, and Kelem (1976)

In this classic study, Diener and colleagues had a woman place a bowl of candy in her living room for trick-or-treaters. An observer was placed out of sight from the children in order to record the behaviors of the trick-or-treaters. In one condition, the woman asked the children identification questions such as where they lived, who their parents were, what their name was, etc. In the other condition, children were completely anonymous. The observer also recorded whether children came individually or in a group. In each condition, the woman invited the children in, claimed she had something in the kitchen she had to tend to so she had to leave the room, and then instructed each child to take only one piece of candy. The anonymous group condition far outnumbered the other conditions in terms of how many times they took more than one piece of candy. In 60% of cases, the anonymous group of children took more than one piece, sometimes even the entire bowl of candy. The anonymous individual and the identified group condition tied for second, taking more than one piece of candy 20% of the time. The condition which broke the rule the fewest times was the identified individual condition, which took more than one piece of candy only in 10% of cases.

Nadler, A., Goldberg, M., Jaffe, Y. (1982)

This study by Nadler, Goldberg, and Jaffe measured the effects that deindividuating conditions (anonymity vs. identifiable) had on two subject conditions (self-differentiated vs. undifferentiated individuals). The self-differentiated individual is said to have definite boundaries between inner characteristics identified as self and the social environment. In the undifferentiated individual, such a distinction is less marked. Subjects who were preselected as being self-differentiated or undifferentiated were observed under conditions of high or low anonymity. Each subject was exposed to transgressions and donations made by confederates, and then their own transgressive and prosocial actions were measured. Also, measures of verbal aggression directed toward the experimenter and measures of internal state of deindividuation were taken. Major findings of the study:

• Within the undifferentiated groups, a greater frequency of subsequent subject transgressive behavior occurred in the anonymity more than in the identifiability conditions.
• Undifferentiated individuals are affected by deindividuating circumstances and they tend to transgress more after observing the model in the experiment.
• In terms of verbal aggression, self-differentiated individuals' level of verbal aggression was equal under anonymity and identifiability conditions. However, undifferentiated individuals tended to model the confederates' aggression and were more verbally aggressive when anonymous than when identifiable.
• The study found that undifferentiated individuals were less self-conscious and less inhibited in the anonymity condition.

Overall, the study supports the hypothesis that deindividuating conditions cause behavioral changes in undifferentiated individuals but have relatively little effect on the behavior of self-differentiated individuals.

Dodd, D. (1985)

Dodd's experiment evaluates the association between deindividuation and anonymity. Dodd measured his subjects by asking them what they would do (within the realm of reality) if their identity were kept anonymous and they would receive no repercussions. The responses were grouped into four categories: prosocial, antisocial, nonnormative, and neutral. Results of his study yielded that 36% of the responses were antisocial, 19% nonnormative, 36% neutral and only 9% prosocial. The most frequent responses recorded were criminal acts. This study on deindividuation exhibits the importance of situational factors, in this case anonymity, when reporting antisocial behavior. Furthermore, this study demonstrates that personal traits and characteristics are not much of predictor when predicting the behavior. Overall, this study is supportive of the concept of deindividuation as Dodd found that behavior changes from what would be normal of a certain individual, to a behavior that is not representative of normal behavioral decisions.

Reicher, S., Levine, R. M., Gordijn, E. (1998)

Following the social models of identity proposed by deindividuation, the study conducted by Reicher, Levine and Gordijn expresses the strategic effects of visibility on the ingroup. The experimenters suggest that increasing visibility amongst the in-group members subsequently increases their ability to support each other against the outgroup—this also leads to an increase in the traits of the in-group that would normally be sanctioned by the out-group. The study was based on the debate over whether fox hunting should or should not be banned. The experimenters were mainly concerned with the participants that defined themselves as ‘anti-hunting;’ The participants involved thirty male and female students in the first year of their A-level psychology course located in a rural town in South West England—the mean age was 17 years. The study involved two separate sessions where the participants completed a pre-test and were assigned to the pro- or anti- hunting groups. A spokesperson representing each view was brought in to discuss their opinions individually with each participant. The pro-hunting group was taken to another room and did not take further part in the study. For the in-group low-visibility condition part of the anti-hunting participants were taken to individual booths where they were not visible to others in the experiment. The remaining anti-hunting participants who were categorized under the in-group high visibility condition, were seated in a circle where each was visible to all throughout the experiment. At this point both groups were shown a video. After watching the video the participants were handed a questionnaire. They were asked to write their names on the front so that the out-group spokesperson would be able to identify the authors of the questionnaire before discussing the comments individually. To the experimenters’ surprise the experiment demonstrated the inverse of their hypothesis. The study showed that more participants were more likely to express normative behaviors that are punishable by powerful out-group when they are visible to fellow members of the same in-group. Experimenters also found that in-group participants actually expressed opposition to the roles imposed by the experimenters themselves. Instead of just uniting against hunt, some of the in-group participants resented being told that their group supported certain views—some regarded themselves as moderate pro- or anti- hunters instead. In this case, the experimenters themselves triggered a response from the in-group, which was later analyzed through follow up experiments.

Lee, E.J. (2007)

This study conducted by Lee investigates the effects of deindividuation on group polarization. Group polarization refers to the finding that following group discussion, individuals tend to endorse a more extreme position in the direction already favored by the group. In Lee's study subjects were either assigned to a deindividuation or individuation condition. Next, each subject answered questions and provided an argument about a given dilemma. They were then shown their partners’ decisions and the subjects were asked to indicate how convincing and valid the overall arguments were. In analyzing her results, Lee came to several conclusions:

• Group identification was positively correlated with group polarization.
• She confirmed her hypothesis that the subjects would show stronger group identification and greater opinion polarization when deindividuated than when individuated.
• Lee found that the more the participants identified with their partners, the more positive their evaluations of the partners’ arguments were, manifesting in-group favoritism.
• Her findings suggest that both higher group identification and deindividuated subjects reported a significantly higher level of public-self-awareness.

Overall, this study provides solid research for which the previous findings regarding deindividuation can be solidified. The finding that deindividuation was associated with stronger group polarization and identification corresponds with the basis of deindividuation: individuals that are more polarized and identified with a group will be more apt to act out of character and display anti-normative behavior.

Applications

Deindividuation is the perceived loss of individuality and personal responsibility that can occur when someone participates as part of a group. It can cause a person to be more likely to donate a large amount of money to charity, but also cause them to be more likely to engage in mob violence. There are many instances in which the effects of deindividuation can be seen in real-world instances. Deindividuation can occur in as varied instances as in the police force, the military, the internet, sports teams, gangs, cults, and social organizations. Although they may seem very different on the surface, these groups share many traits that make them conducive to, and even contingent on, deindividuation. All of the examples share the strong drive towards group cohesiveness. Police officers, soldiers, and sports teams all wear uniforms that create a distinct in-group while eliminating the individual differences of personal style. Men in the military are even required to shave their heads in order to better unify their appearance. Although gangs, cults, and fraternities and sororities do not require the same degree of physical uniformity, they also display this tendency towards unifying the exterior in order to unify their group. For example, gangs may have a symbol that they tattoo on their bodies in order to identify themselves as part of the in-group of their gang. Members of fraternities and sororities often wear clothing marked with their “letters” so that they can quickly be identified as part of their specific group. By reducing individual differences, these various groups become more cohesive. The cohesiveness of a group can make its members lose their sense of self in the overwhelming identity of the group. For example, a young man in the military might identify himself through a variety of individual constructs, however while in uniform with a shaved head and dog tags around his neck, he might suddenly only identify himself as a soldier. Likewise, a girl wearing the letters of her sorority on her shirt, and standing in a crowd of her sorority sisters, may feel less like herself, and more like a “Chi-Oh” or “Tridelt.” Physically normalized to the standards of their respective groups, these various group members are all at risk to feel deindividuized. They may begin to think of themselves as a mere part of the group, and lose the awareness that they are an individual with the capacity to think and act completely separately from their group. They could do things they might not usually do out of shyness, individual morality, self-consciousness, or other factors. Due to reduced feelings of accountability, and increased feelings of group cohesion and conformity, these group members could act in a manner of non-normative ways. Deindividuation often occurs without face-to-face interaction and is a prevalent feature of the internet. The loosening of normal constraints on behavior caused by deindividuation thrives within online environments and contributes to cyberbullying behavior. Furthermore, deindividuation online has been thought to be responsible for a widespread willingness to illegally download software. One researcher tested the hypothesis that “Persons who prefer the anonymity and pseudonymity associated with interaction on the Internet are more likely to pirate software,” but found that neither anonymity nor pseudonymity predicted self-reported software piracy From buying drinks for an entire bar of strangers to committing violence as dire as murder or rape, deindividuation can lead a variety of people to act in ways they may have thought impossible.

Controversies

Questions have been raised about the external validity of deindividuation research. As deindividuation has evolved as a theory, some researchers feel that the theory has lost sight of the dynamic group intergroup context of collective behavior that it attempts to model. Some propose that deindividuation effects may actually be a product of group norms; crowd behavior is guided by norms that emerge in a specific context. More generally, it seems odd that while deindividuation theory argues that group immersion causes antinormative behavior, research in social psychology has also shown that the presence of a group produces conformity to group norms and standards. Certain experiments, such as Milgram's obedience studies (1974) demonstrate conformity to the experimenter's demands; however the research paradigm in this experiment is very similar to some employ in deindividuation studies, except the role of the experimenter is usually not taken into account in such instances.

A larger criticism is that our conception of the antinormative behaviors which deindividuation causes is based on social norms, which is problematic because norms by nature are variable and situation specific. For instance, Johnson and Downing (1979) demonstrated that group behaviors vary greatly depending on the situation. Participants who dressed in Ku Klux Klan robes shocked a research confederate more, but participants dressed as nurses actually shocked less regardless of whether they were identifiable or anonymous. They explained these results as a product of contextual cues, namely the costumes. This explanation runs counter to Zimbardo's initial theory of deindividuation which states that deindividuation increases antinormative behavior regardless of external cues. Researchers who examine deindividuation effects within the context of situational norms support a social identity model of deindividuation effects.

Identity politics

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The term identity politics in common usage refers to a tendency of people sharing a particular racial, religious, ethnic, social, or cultural identity to form exclusive political alliances, instead of engaging in traditional broad-based party politics, or promote their particular interests without regard for interests of a larger political group. In academic usage, the term has been used to refer to a wide range of political activities and theoretical analysis rooted in experiences of injustice shared by different social groups. In this usage, identity politics typically aim to reclaim greater self-determination and political freedom for marginalized groups through understanding their distinctive nature and challenging externally imposed characterizations, instead of organizing solely around belief systems or party affiliations. Identity is used as a tool to articulate political claims, promote political ideologies, and guide political action with the aim of asserting group distinctiveness and gaining power and recognition in the context of perceived inequality or injustice.

 

The term identity politics has been in use in various forms since the 1960s or 1970s, but has been applied with, at times, radically different meanings by different populations. It has gained currency with the emergence of social movements such as the women's movement, the civil rights movement in the U.S., the LGBTQ movement, as well as nationalist and postcolonial movements.

Examples include identity politics based on age, religion, social class or caste, culture, deafhood, dialect, disability, education, ethnicity, language, nationality, sex, gender identity, generation, occupation, profession, race, political party affiliation, sexual orientation, settlement, urban and rural habitation, and veteran status.

History

The term identity politics has been used in political discourse since at least the 1970s. One aim of identity politics has been for those feeling oppressed by and actively suffering under systemic social inequities to articulate their suffering and felt oppression in terms of their own experience by processes of consciousness-raising and collective action. One of the older written examples of it can be found in the April 1977 statement of the black feminist group, Combahee River Collective, which was subsequently reprinted in a number of anthologies, and Barbara Smith and the Combahee River Collective have been credited with coining the term. For example, in their terminal statement, they said:

[A]s children we realized that we were different from boys and that we were treated different—for example, when we were told in the same breath to be quiet both for the sake of being 'ladylike' and to make us less objectionable in the eyes of white people. In the process of consciousness-raising, actually life-sharing, we began to recognize the commonality of our experiences and, from the sharing and growing consciousness, to build a politics that will change our lives and inevitably end our oppression....We realize that the only people who care enough about us to work consistently for our liberation are us. Our politics evolve from a healthy love for ourselves, our sisters and our community which allows us to continue our struggle and work. This focusing upon our own oppression is embodied in the concept of identity politics. We believe that the most profound and potentially most radical politics come directly out of our own identity, as opposed to working to end somebody else's oppression.

— Zillah R. Eisenstein (1978), The Combahee River Collective Statement, 

Identity politics, as a mode of categorizing, are closely connected to the ascription that some social groups are oppressed (such as women, ethnic minorities, and sexual minorities); that is, the claim that individuals belonging to those groups are, by virtue of their identity, more vulnerable to forms of oppression such as cultural imperialism, violence, exploitation of labour, marginalization, or powerlessness. Therefore, these lines of social difference can be seen as ways to gain empowerment or avenues through which to work towards a more equal society.

Some groups have combined identity politics and Marxist social class analysis and class consciousness — the most notable example being the Black Panther Party — but this is not necessarily characteristic of the form. Another example is MOVE, members of which mixed black nationalism with anarcho-primitivism (a radical form of green politics based on the idea that civilization is an instrument of oppression, advocating the return to a hunter gatherer society). Identity politics can be left wing or right wing, with examples of the latter being Ulster Loyalism, Islamism and Christian Identity movements. 

During the 1980s, the politics of identity became very prominent and it was linked to a new wave of social movement activism.

The mid-2010s have seen a marked rise of identity politics, including white identity politics in the United States. This phenomenon is attributed to increased demographic diversity and the prospect of whites becoming a minority in America. Such shifts have driven many to affiliate with conservative causes including those not related to diversity. This includes the presidential election of Donald Trump, who was supported by prominent white supremacists such as David Duke and Richard B. Spencer (which Trump disavowed).

Debates and criticism

Nature of the movement

The term identity politics has been applied and misapplied retroactively to varying movements that long predate its coinage. Historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. discussed identity politics extensively in his 1991 book The Disuniting of America. Schlesinger, a strong supporter of liberal conceptions of civil rights, argues that a liberal democracy requires a common basis for culture and society to function. Rather than seeing civil society as already fractured along lines of power and powerless (according to race, ethnicity, sexuality, etc), Schlesinger suggests that basing politics on group marginalization is itself what fractures the civil polity, and that identity politics therefore works against creating real opportunities for ending marginalization. Schlesinger believes that "movements for civil rights should aim toward full acceptance and integration of marginalized groups into the mainstream culture, rather than...perpetuating that marginalization through affirmations of difference".

Brendan O'Neill has similarly suggested that identity politics causes (rather than simply recognizes and acts on) political schisms along lines of social identity. Thus, he contrasts the politics of gay liberation and identity politics by saying "... [Peter] Tatchell also had, back in the day, ... a commitment to the politics of liberation, which encouraged gays to come out and live and engage. Now, we have the politics of identity, which invites people to stay in, to look inward, to obsess over the body and the self, to surround themselves with a moral forcefield to protect their worldview—which has nothing to do with the world—from any questioning." In these and other ways, a political perspective oriented to one's own well being can be recast as causing the divisions that it insists upon making visible. 

In this same vein, author Owen Jones argues that identity politics often marginalize the working class, saying that:

In the 1950s and 1960s, left-wing intellectuals who were both inspired and informed by a powerful labour movement wrote hundreds of books and articles on working-class issues. Such work would help shape the views of politicians at the very top of the Labour Party. Today, progressive intellectuals are far more interested in issues of identity. ... Of course, the struggles for the emancipation of women, gays, and ethnic minorities are exceptionally important causes. New Labour has co-opted them, passing genuinely progressive legislation on gay equality and women's rights, for example. But it is an agenda that has happily co-existed with the sidelining of the working class in politics, allowing New Labour to protect its radical flank while pressing ahead with Thatcherite policies.

— Owen Jones, Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class

LGBT issues

The gay liberation movement of the late 1960s through the mid-1980s urged lesbians and gay men to engage in radical direct action, and to counter societal shame with gay pride. In the feminist spirit of the personal being political, the most basic form of activism was an emphasis on coming out to family, friends and colleagues, and living life as an openly lesbian or gay person. While the 1970s were the peak of "gay liberation" in New York City and other urban areas in the United States, "gay liberation" was the term still used instead of "gay pride" in more oppressive areas into the mid-1980s, with some organizations opting for the more inclusive, "lesbian and gay liberation". While women and transgender activists had lobbied for more inclusive names from the beginning of the movement, the initialism LGBT, or "Queer" as a counterculture shorthand for LGBT, did not gain much acceptance as an umbrella term until much later in the 1980s, and in some areas not until the '90s or even '00s. During this period in the United States, identity politics were largely seen in these communities in the definitions espoused by writers such as self-identified, "black, dyke, feminist, poet, mother" Audre Lorde's view, that lived experience matters, defines us, and is the only thing that grants authority to speak; that, "If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive."

By the 2000s, in some areas of postmodern queer studies, notably those around gender, the idea of "identity politics" began to shift away from that of naming and claiming lived experience, and authority arising from lived experience, to one emphasizing choice and performance. Some who draw on the work of authors like Judith Butler, stress the importance of not assuming an already existing identity, but of remaking and unmaking identities through "performance". Writers in the field of Queer theory have at times taken this to the extent as to now argue that "queer", despite generations of specific use, no longer needs to refer to any specific sexual orientation at all; that it is now only about disrupting the mainstream, with author David M. Halperin arguing that straight people may now also self-identify as "queer," which some believe, is a form of cultural appropriation which robs gays and lesbians of their identity and makes invisible and irrelevant the actual, lived experience that causes them to be marginalized in the first place. "It desexualizes identity, when the issue is precisely about a sexual identity."

There are also supporters of identity politics who have developed their stances on the basis of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's work (namely, "Can the Subaltern Speak?") and have described some forms of identity politics as strategic essentialism, a form which has sought to work with hegemonic discourses to reform the understanding of "universal" goals.

Critiques of identity politics

The Industrial Workers of the World poster "Pyramid of Capitalist System" (1911)

 

Some critics argue that groups based on a particular shared identity (e.g. race, or gender identity) can divert energy and attention from more fundamental issues, similar to the history of divide and rule strategies. Sociologist Charles Derber asserts that the American left is "largely an identity-politics party" and that it "offers no broad critique of the political economy of capitalism. It focuses on reforms for blacks and women and so forth. But it doesn’t offer a contextual analysis within capitalism." Both he and David North of the Socialist Equality Party posit that these fragmented and isolated identity movements which permeate the left have allowed for a far-right resurgence. Critiques of identity politics have also been expressed on other grounds by writers such as Eric Hobsbawm, Todd Gitlin, Michael Tomasky, Richard Rorty, Sean Wilentz, Robert W. McChesney,^{[citation needed]} and Jim Sleeper. Hobsbawm, in particular, has criticized nationalisms, and the principle of national self-determination adopted internationally after World War I, since national governments are often merely an expression of a ruling class or power, and their proliferation was a source of the wars of the 20th century. Hence, Hobsbawm argues that identity politics, such as queer nationalism, Islamism, Cornish nationalism or Ulster loyalism are just other versions of bourgeois nationalism. The view that identity politics rooted in challenging racism, sexism, and the like actually obscures class inequality is widespread in the United States and many other Western nations; however, this framing ignores how class-based politics are identity politics themselves.

Intersectional critiques

In her journal article Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics and Violence against Women of Color, Kimberle Crenshaw treats identity politics as a process that brings people together based on a shared aspect of their identity. Crenshaw applauds identity politics for bringing African Americans (and other non-white people), gays and lesbians, and other oppressed groups together in community and progress. However, Crenshaw also points out that frequently groups come together based on a shared political identity but then fail to examine differences among themselves within their own group: "The problem with identity politics is not that it fails to transcend differences, as some critics charge, but rather the opposite—that it frequently conflates or ignores intragroup differences." Crenshaw argues that when society thinks "black", they think black male, and when society thinks feminism, they think white woman. When considering black women, at least two aspects of their identity are the subject of oppression: their race and their sex. Crenshaw proposes instead that identity politics are useful but that we must be aware of intersectionality and the role it plays in identity politics. Nira Yuval-Davis supports Crenshaw's critiques in Intersectionality and Feminist Politics and explains that "Identities are individual and collective narratives that answer the question 'who am/are I/we?" 

In her journal article  Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics and Violence against Women of Color, Crenshaw provides the example of the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill controversy to expand on her point. Anita Hill came forward and accused Supreme Court Justice Nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment; Clarence Thomas would be the second African American to serve on the Supreme Court. Crenshaw argues that when Anita Hill came forward she was deemed anti-black in the movement against racism, and though she came forward on the feminist issue of sexual harassment, she was excluded because when considering feminism, it is the narrative of white middle-class women that prevails. Crenshaw concludes that acknowledging intersecting categories when groups unite on the basis of identity politics is better than ignoring categories altogether.

Examples

A Le Monde/IFOP poll in January 2011 conducted in France and Germany found that a majority felt Muslims are "scattered improperly"; an analyst for IFOP said the results indicated something "beyond linking immigration with security or immigration with unemployment, to linking Islam with a threat to identity".

Intel

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Intel's current logo, used since 2006
Intel's headquarters in Santa Clara, California
Formerly	N M Electronics (1968)
Type	Public
Traded as	NASDAQ: INTC NASDAQ-100 Component DJIA Component S&P 100 Component S&P 500 Component
Industry	Semiconductors
Founded	July 18, 1968; 50 years ago
Founders	Gordon Moore Robert Noyce
Headquarters	Santa Clara, California, U.S.
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Gordon Moore (Chairman Emeritus) Andy Bryant (Chairman) Robert H. Swan (CEO)
Products	Central processing units Microprocessors Integrated graphics processing units (iGPU) Systems-on-chip (SoCs) Motherboard chipsets Network interface controllers Modems Mobile phones Solid state drives Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Chipsets Flash memory Vehicle automation sensors
Revenue	US$70.7 billion (2018)
Operating income	US$23.3 billion (2018)
Net income	US$21.1 billion (2018)
Total assets	US$123.2 billion (2017)
Total equity	US$69.01 billion (2017)
Number of employees	107,100 (2018 Q3)
Subsidiaries	Mobileye McAfee (49%) Here (15%)
Website	intel.com

Intel Corporation (commonly known as Intel and stylized as intel) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, in the Silicon Valley. It is the world's second largest and second highest valued semiconductor chip manufacturer based on revenue after being overtaken by Samsung, and is the inventor of the x86 series of microprocessors, the processors found in most personal computers (PCs). Intel ranked No. 46 in the 2018 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.

Intel supplies processors for computer system manufacturers such as Apple, Lenovo, HP, and Dell. Intel also manufactures motherboard chipsets, network interface controllers and integrated circuits, flash memory, graphics chips, embedded processors and other devices related to communications and computing.

Intel Corporation was founded on July 18, 1968, by semiconductor pioneers Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore (of Moore's law), and widely associated with the executive leadership and vision of Andrew Grove. The company's name was conceived as portmanteau of the words integrated and electronics, with co-founder Noyce having been a key inventor of the integrated circuit (microchip). The fact that "intel" is the term for intelligence information also made the name appropriate. Intel was an early developer of SRAM and DRAM memory chips, which represented the majority of its business until 1981. Although Intel created the world's first commercial microprocessor chip in 1971, it was not until the success of the personal computer (PC) that this became its primary business.

During the 1990s, Intel invested heavily in new microprocessor designs fostering the rapid growth of the computer industry. During this period Intel became the dominant supplier of microprocessors for PCs and was known for aggressive and anti-competitive tactics in defense of its market position, particularly against Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), as well as a struggle with Microsoft for control over the direction of the PC industry.

The Open Source Technology Center at Intel hosts PowerTOP and LatencyTOP, and supports other open-source projects such as Wayland, Mesa3D, Intel Array Building Blocks, and Threading Building Blocks (TBB), and Xen.

Current operations

Operating segments

• Client Computing Group – 55% of 2016 revenues – produces hardware components used in desktop and notebook computers.
• Data Center Group – 29% of 2016 revenues – produces hardware components used in server, network, and storage platforms.
• Internet of Things Group – 5% of 2016 revenues – offers platforms designed for retail, transportation, industrial, buildings and home use.
• Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group – 4% of 2016 revenues – manufactures NAND flash memory and 3D XPoint, branded as Optane, products primarily used in solid-state drives.
• Intel Security Group – 4% of 2016 revenues – produces software, particularly security, and antivirus software.
• Programmable Solutions Group – 3% of 2016 revenues – manufactures programmable semiconductors (primarily FPGAs).Top customers

In 2017, Dell accounted for about 16% of Intel's total revenues, Lenovo accounted for 13% of total revenues, and HP Inc. accounted for 11% of total revenues.

Market share

Market share in early 2011

According to IDC, while Intel enjoyed the biggest market share in both the overall worldwide PC microprocessor market (73.3%) and the mobile PC microprocessor (80.4%) in the second quarter of 2011, the numbers decreased by 1.5% and 1.9% compared to the first quarter of 2011.

Historical market share

In the 1980s, Intel was among the top ten sellers of semiconductors (10th in 1987) in the world. In 1992, Intel became the biggest chip maker by revenue and has held the position ever since. Other top semiconductor companies include TSMC, Advanced Micro Devices, Samsung, Texas Instruments, Toshiba and STMicroelectronics.

Major competitors

Competitors in PC chipsets include Advanced Micro Devices, VIA Technologies, Silicon Integrated Systems, and Nvidia. Intel's competitors in networking include NXP Semiconductors, Infineon, Broadcom Limited, Marvell Technology Group and Applied Micro Circuits Corporation, and competitors in flash memory include Spansion, Samsung, Qimonda, Toshiba, STMicroelectronics, and SK Hynix. 

The only major competitor in the x86 processor market is Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), with which Intel has had full cross-licensing agreements since 1976: each partner can use the other's patented technological innovations without charge after a certain time. However, the cross-licensing agreement is canceled in the event of an AMD bankruptcy or takeover.

Some smaller competitors such as VIA Technologies produce low-power x86 processors for small factor computers and portable equipment. However, the advent of such mobile computing devices, in particular, smartphones, has in recent years led to a decline in PC sales. Since over 95% of the world's smartphones currently use processors designed by ARM Holdings, ARM has become a major competitor for Intel's processor market. ARM is also planning to make inroads into the PC and server market.

Intel has been involved in several disputes regarding violation of antitrust laws, which are noted below.

Corporate history

Origins

Andy Grove, Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore in 1978

Intel logo used from 1968 to 2006

 

Intel was founded in Mountain View, California, in 1968 by Gordon E. Moore (of "Moore's law" fame), a chemist, and Robert Noyce, a physicist and co-inventor of the integrated circuit. Arthur Rock (investor and venture capitalist) helped them find investors, while Max Palevsky was on the board from an early stage. Moore and Noyce had left Fairchild Semiconductor to found Intel. Rock was not an employee, but he was an investor and was chairman of the board. The total initial investment in Intel was $2.5 million convertible debentures and $10,000 from Rock. Just 2 years later, Intel became a public company via an initial public offering (IPO), raising $6.8 million ($23.50 per share). Intel's third employee was Andy Grove, a chemical engineer, who later ran the company through much of the 1980s and the high-growth 1990s. 

In deciding on a name, Moore and Noyce quickly rejected "Moore Noyce", near homophone for "more noise" – an ill-suited name for an electronics company, since noise in electronics is usually undesirable and typically associated with bad interference. Instead, they founded the company as N M Electronics on July 18, 1968, but by the end of the month had changed the name to Intel which stood for Integrated Electronics. Since "Intel" was already trademarked by the hotel chain Intelco, they had to buy the rights for the name.

Early history

At its founding, Intel was distinguished by its ability to make logic circuits using semiconductor devices. The founders' goal was the semiconductor memory market, widely predicted to replace magnetic-core memory. Its first product, a quick entry into the small, high-speed memory market in 1969, was the 3101 Schottky TTL bipolar 64-bit static random-access memory (SRAM), which was nearly twice as fast as earlier Schottky diode implementations by Fairchild and the Electrotechnical Laboratory in Tsukuba, Japan. In the same year, Intel also produced the 3301 Schottky bipolar 1024-bit read-only memory (ROM) and the first commercial metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) silicon gate SRAM chip, the 256-bit 1101. While the 1101 was a significant advance, its complex static cell structure made it too slow and costly for mainframe memories. The three-transistor cell implemented in the first commercially available dynamic random-access memory (DRAM), the 1103 released in 1970, solved these issues. The 1103 was the bestselling semiconductor memory chip in the world by 1972, as it replaced core memory in many applications. Intel's business grew during the 1970s as it expanded and improved its manufacturing processes and produced a wider range of products, still dominated by various memory devices. 

Federico Faggin, the designer of Intel 4004

 

While Intel created the first commercially available microprocessor (Intel 4004) in 1971 and one of the first microcomputers in 1972, by the early 1980s its business was dominated by dynamic random-access memory chips. However, increased competition from Japanese semiconductor manufacturers had, by 1983, dramatically reduced the profitability of this market. The growing success of the IBM personal computer, based on an Intel microprocessor, was among factors that convinced Gordon Moore (CEO since 1975) to shift the company's focus to microprocessors and to change fundamental aspects of that business model. Moore's decision to sole-source Intel's 386 chip played into the company's continuing success. The development of the micro-processor by Intel, (1971): The micro-processor represented a notable advance in the technology of integrated circuitry. A micro-processor miniaturized the central processing unit of a computer, which then made it possible for small machines to perform calculations that in the past only very large machines could do. Considerable technological innovation was needed before the micro-processor could actually become the basis of what was first known as a "mini computer" and then known as a "personal computer".

By the end of the 1980s, buoyed by its fortuitous position as microprocessor supplier to IBM and IBM's competitors within the rapidly growing personal computer market, Intel embarked on a 10-year period of unprecedented growth as the primary (and most profitable) hardware supplier to the PC industry, part of the winning 'Wintel' combination. Moore handed over to Andy Grove in 1987. By launching its Intel Inside marketing campaign in 1991, Intel was able to associate brand loyalty with consumer selection, so that by the end of the 1990s, its line of Pentium processors had become a household name.

Slowing demand and challenges to dominance in 2000

After 2000, growth in demand for high-end microprocessors slowed. Competitors, notably AMD (Intel's largest competitor in its primary x86 architecture market), garnered significant market share, initially in low-end and mid-range processors but ultimately across the product range, and Intel's dominant position in its core market was greatly reduced. In the early 2000s then-CEO, Craig Barrett attempted to diversify the company's business beyond semiconductors, but few of these activities were ultimately successful.

Litigation

Intel had also for a number of years been embroiled in litigation. US law did not initially recognize intellectual property rights related to microprocessor topology (circuit layouts), until the Semiconductor Chip Protection Act of 1984, a law sought by Intel and the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA).^[38] During the late 1980s and 1990s (after this law was passed), Intel also sued companies that tried to develop competitor chips to the 80386 CPU. The lawsuits were noted to significantly burden the competition with legal bills, even if Intel lost the suits. Antitrust allegations had been simmering since the early 1990s and had been the cause of one lawsuit against Intel in 1991. In 2004 and 2005, AMD brought further claims against Intel related to unfair competition.

Regaining of momentum (2005–2007)

In 2005, CEO Paul Otellini reorganized the company to refocus its core processor and chipset business on platforms (enterprise, digital home, digital health, and mobility). 

In 2006, Intel unveiled its Core microarchitecture to widespread critical acclaim; the product range was perceived as an exceptional leap in processor performance that at a stroke regained much of its leadership of the field. In 2008, Intel had another "tick" when it introduced the Penryn microarchitecture, which was 45 nm. Later that year, Intel released a processor with the Nehalem architecture. Nehalem had positive reviews.

Sale of XScale processor business (2006)

On June 27, 2006, the sale of Intel's XScale assets was announced. Intel agreed to sell the XScale processor business to Marvell Technology Group for an estimated $600 million and the assumption of unspecified liabilities. The move was intended to permit Intel to focus its resources on its core x86 and server businesses, and the acquisition completed on November 9, 2006.

Acquisitions and investments (2010–present)

In 2010, Intel purchased McAfee, a manufacturer of computer security technology, for $7.68 billion. As a condition for regulatory approval of the transaction, Intel agreed to provide rival security firms with all necessary information that would allow their products to use Intel's chips and personal computers. After the acquisition, Intel had about 90,000 employees, including about 12,000 software engineers. In September 2016, Intel sold a majority stake in its computer-security unit to TPG Capital, reversing the five-year-old McAfee acquisition.

In August 2010, Intel and Infineon Technologies announced that Intel would acquire Infineon's Wireless Solutions business. Intel planned to use Infineon's technology in laptops, smart phones, netbooks, tablets and embedded computers in consumer products, eventually integrating its wireless modem into Intel's silicon chips.

In March 2011, Intel bought most of the assets of Cairo-based SySDSoft.

In July 2011, Intel announced that it had agreed to acquire Fulcrum Microsystems Inc., a company specializing in network switches. The company used to be included on the EE Times list of 60 Emerging Startups.

In October 2011, Intel reached a deal to acquire Telmap, an Israeli-based navigation software company. The purchase price was not disclosed, but Israeli media reported values around $300 million to $350 million.

In July 2012, Intel agreed to buy 10% of the shares of ASML Holding NV for $2.1 billion and another $1 billion for 5% of the shares that need shareholder approval to fund relevant research and development efforts, as part of a EUR3.3 billion ($4.1 billion) deal to accelerate the development of 450-millimeter wafer technology and extreme ultra-violet lithography by as much as two years.

In July 2013, Intel confirmed the acquisition of Omek Interactive, an Israeli company that makes technology for gesture-based interfaces, without disclosing the monetary value of the deal. An official statement from Intel read: "The acquisition of Omek Interactive will help increase Intel's capabilities in the delivery of more immersive perceptual computing experiences." One report estimated the value of the acquisition between US$30 million and $50 million.

The acquisition of a Spanish natural language recognition startup, Indisys was announced in September 2013. The terms of the deal were not disclosed but an email from an Intel representative stated: "Intel has acquired Indisys, a privately held company based in Seville, Spain. The majority of Indisys employees joined Intel. We signed the agreement to acquire the company on May 31 and the deal has been completed." Indysis explains that its artificial intelligence (AI) technology "is a human image, which converses fluently and with common sense in multiple languages and also works in different platforms."

In December 2014, Intel bought PasswordBox.

In January 2015, Intel purchased a 30% stake in Vuzix, a smart glasses manufacturer. The deal was worth $24.8 million.

In February 2015, Intel announced its agreement to purchase German network chipmaker Lantiq, to aid in its expansion of its range of chips in devices with Internet connection capability.

In June 2015, Intel announced its agreement to purchase FPGA design company Altera for $16.7 billion, in its largest acquisition to date. The acquisition completed in December 2015.

In October 2015, Intel bought cognitive computing company Saffron Technology for an undisclosed price.

In August 2016, Intel purchased deep-learning startup Nervana Systems for $350 million.

In December 2016, Intel acquired computer vision startup Movidius for an undisclosed price.

In March 2017, Intel announced that they had agreed to purchase Mobileye, an Israeli developer of "autonomous driving" systems for US$15.3 billion.

In June 2017, Intel Corporation announced an investment of over Rs.1100 crore ($170 million) for its upcoming Research and Development (R&D) centre in Bangalore.

In January 2019, Intel announced an investment of over $11 billion on a new Israeli chip plant, as told by the Israeli Finance Minister.

Expansions (2008–2011)

In 2008, Intel spun off key assets of a solar startup business effort to form an independent company, SpectraWatt Inc. In 2011, SpectraWatt filed for bankruptcy.

In February 2011, Intel began to build a new microprocessor manufacturing facility in Chandler, Arizona, completed in 2013 at a cost of $5 billion. The building was never used. The company produces three-quarters of its products in the United States, although three-quarters of its revenue come from overseas.

In April 2011, Intel began a pilot project with ZTE Corporation to produce smartphones using the Intel Atom processor for China's domestic market.

In December 2011, Intel announced that it reorganized several of its business units into a new mobile and communications group that would be responsible for the company's smartphone, tablet, and wireless efforts.

Opening up the foundries to other manufacturers (2013)

Finding itself with excess fab capacity after the failure of the Ultrabook to gain market traction and with PC sales declining, in 2013 Intel reached a foundry agreement to produce chips for Altera using 14-nm process. General Manager of Intel's custom foundry division Sunit Rikhi indicated that Intel would pursue further such deals in the future. This was after poor sales of Windows 8 hardware caused a major retrenchment for most of the major semiconductor manufacturers, except for Qualcomm, which continued to see healthy purchases from its largest customer, Apple.

As of July 2013, five companies were using Intel's fabs via the Intel Custom Foundry division: Achronix, Tabula, Netronome, Microsemi, and Panasonic – most are field-programmable gate array (FPGA) makers, but Netronome designs network processors. Only Achronix began shipping chips made by Intel using the 22-nm Tri-Gate process. Several other customers also exist but were not announced at the time.

The Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) was launched in October 2013 and Intel is part of the coalition of public and private organisations that also includes Facebook, Google, and Microsoft. Led by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the A4AI seeks to make Internet access more affordable so that access is broadened in the developing world, where only 31% of people are online. Google will help to decrease Internet access prices so that they fall below the UN Broadband Commission's worldwide target of 5% of monthly income.

In October 2018, Arm Holdings partnered with Intel in order to share code for embedded systems through the Yocto Project.

Product and market history

SRAMS and the microprocessor

Intel's first products were shift register memory and random-access memory integrated circuits, and Intel grew to be a leader in the fiercely competitive DRAM, SRAM, and ROM markets throughout the 1970s. Concurrently, Intel engineers Marcian Hoff, Federico Faggin, Stanley Mazor and Masatoshi Shima invented Intel's first microprocessor. Originally developed for the Japanese company Busicom to replace a number of ASICs in a calculator already produced by Busicom, the Intel 4004 was introduced to the mass market on November 15, 1971, though the microprocessor did not become the core of Intel's business until the mid-1980s. (Note: Intel is usually given credit with Texas Instruments for the almost-simultaneous invention of the microprocessor)

From DRAM to microprocessors

In 1983, at the dawn of the personal computer era, Intel's profits came under increased pressure from Japanese memory-chip manufacturers, and then-president Andy Grove focused the company on microprocessors. Grove described this transition in the book Only the Paranoid Survive. A key element of his plan was the notion, then considered radical, of becoming the single source for successors to the popular 8086 microprocessor. 

Until then, the manufacture of complex integrated circuits was not reliable enough for customers to depend on a single supplier, but Grove began producing processors in three geographically distinct factories, and ceased licensing the chip designs to competitors such as Zilog and AMD. When the PC industry boomed in the late 1980s and 1990s, Intel was one of the primary beneficiaries.

Intel, x86 processors, and the IBM PC

The die from an Intel 8742, an 8-bit microcontroller that includes a CPU running at 12 MHz, 128 bytes of RAM, 2048 bytes of EPROM, and I/O in the same chip

 

Despite the ultimate importance of the microprocessor, the 4004 and its successors the 8008 and the 8080 were never major revenue contributors at Intel. As the next processor, the 8086 (and its variant the 8088) was completed in 1978, Intel embarked on a major marketing and sales campaign for that chip nicknamed "Operation Crush", and intended to win as many customers for the processor as possible. One design win was the newly created IBM PC division, though the importance of this was not fully realized at the time. 

IBM introduced its personal computer in 1981, and it was rapidly successful. In 1982, Intel created the 80286 microprocessor, which, two years later, was used in the IBM PC/AT. Compaq, the first IBM PC "clone" manufacturer, produced a desktop system based on the faster 80286 processor in 1985 and in 1986 quickly followed with the first 80386-based system, beating IBM and establishing a competitive market for PC-compatible systems and setting up Intel as a key component supplier.

In 1975, the company had started a project to develop a highly advanced 32-bit microprocessor, finally released in 1981 as the Intel iAPX 432. The project was too ambitious and the processor was never able to meet its performance objectives, and it failed in the marketplace. Intel extended the x86 architecture to 32 bits instead.

386 microprocessor

During this period Andrew Grove dramatically redirected the company, closing much of its DRAM business and directing resources to the microprocessor business. Of perhaps greater importance was his decision to "single-source" the 386 microprocessor. Prior to this, microprocessor manufacturing was in its infancy, and manufacturing problems frequently reduced or stopped production, interrupting supplies to customers. To mitigate this risk, these customers typically insisted that multiple manufacturers produce chips they could use to ensure a consistent supply. The 8080 and 8086-series microprocessors were produced by several companies, notably AMD, with which Intel had a technology-sharing contract. Grove made the decision not to license the 386 design to other manufacturers, instead, producing it in three geographically distinct factories: Santa Clara, California; Hillsboro, Oregon; and Chandler, a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona. He convinced customers that this would ensure consistent delivery. In doing this, Intel breached its contract with AMD, which sued and was paid millions of dollars in damages but could not manufacture new Intel CPU designs any longer. (Instead, AMD started to develop and manufacture its own competing x86 designs.) As the success of Compaq's Deskpro 386 established the 386 as the dominant CPU choice, Intel achieved a position of near-exclusive dominance as its supplier. Profits from this funded rapid development of both higher-performance chip designs and higher-performance manufacturing capabilities, propelling Intel to a position of unquestioned leadership by the early 1990s.

486, Pentium, and Itanium

Intel introduced the 486 microprocessor in 1989, and in 1990 established a second design team, designing the processors code-named "P5" and "P6" in parallel and committing to a major new processor every two years, versus the four or more years such designs had previously taken. Engineers Vinod Dham and Rajeev Chandrasekhar (Member of Parliament, India) were key figures on the core team that invented the 486 chip and later, Intel's signature Pentium chip. The P5 project was earlier known as "Operation Bicycle," referring to the cycles of the processor through two parallel execution pipelines. The P5 was introduced in 1993 as the Intel Pentium, substituting a registered trademark name for the former part number (numbers, such as 486, cannot be legally registered as trademarks in the United States). The P6 followed in 1995 as the Pentium Pro and improved into the Pentium II in 1997. New architectures were developed alternately in Santa Clara, California and Hillsboro, Oregon. 

The Santa Clara design team embarked in 1993 on a successor to the x86 architecture, codenamed "P7". The first attempt was dropped a year later but quickly revived in a cooperative program with Hewlett-Packard engineers, though Intel soon took over primary design responsibility. The resulting implementation of the IA-64 64-bit architecture was the Itanium, finally introduced in June 2001. The Itanium's performance running legacy x86 code did not meet expectations, and it failed to compete effectively with x86-64, which was AMD's 64-bit extension of the 32-bit x86 architecture (Intel uses the name Intel 64, previously EM64T). In 2017, Intel announced that the Itanium 9700 series (Kittson) would be the last Itanium chips produced.

The Hillsboro team designed the Willamette processors (initially code-named P68), which were marketed as the Pentium 4.

Pentium flaw

In June 1994, Intel engineers discovered a flaw in the floating-point math subsection of the P5 Pentium microprocessor. Under certain data-dependent conditions, the low-order bits of the result of a floating-point division would be incorrect. The error could compound in subsequent calculations. Intel corrected the error in a future chip revision, and under public pressure it issued a total recall and replaced the defective Pentium CPUs (which were limited to some 60, 66, 75, 90, and 100 MHz models) on customer request. 

The bug was discovered independently in October 1994 by Thomas Nicely, Professor of Mathematics at Lynchburg College. He contacted Intel but received no response. On October 30, he posted a message about his finding on the Internet. Word of the bug spread quickly and reached the industry press. The bug was easy to replicate; a user could enter specific numbers into the calculator on the operating system. Consequently, many users did not accept Intel's statements that the error was minor and "not even an erratum." During Thanksgiving, in 1994, The New York Times ran a piece by journalist John Markoff spotlighting the error. Intel changed its position and offered to replace every chip, quickly putting in place a large end-user support organization. This resulted in a $475 million charge against Intel's 1994 revenue. Dr. Nicely later learned that Intel had discovered the FDIV bug in its own testing a few months before him (but had decided not to inform customers).

The "Pentium flaw" incident, Intel's response to it, and the surrounding media coverage propelled Intel from being a technology supplier generally unknown to most computer users to a household name. Dovetailing with an uptick in the "Intel Inside" campaign, the episode is considered to have been a positive event for Intel, changing some of its business practices to be more end-user focused and generating substantial public awareness, while avoiding a lasting negative impression.

"Intel Inside" and other campaigns

The "Intel Inside" logo used from 1991 to 2006

 

During this period, Intel undertook two major supporting advertising campaigns. The first campaign, the 1991 "Intel Inside" marketing and branding campaign, is widely known and has become synonymous with Intel itself. The idea of "ingredient branding" was new at the time, with only NutraSweet and a few others making attempts to do so. This campaign established Intel, which had been a component supplier little-known outside the PC industry, as a household name. 

The second campaign, Intel's Systems Group, which began in the early 1990s, showcased manufacturing of PC motherboards, the main board component of a personal computer, and the one into which the processor (CPU) and memory (RAM) chips are plugged. The Systems Group campaign was lesser known than the Intel Inside campaign. 

Shortly after, Intel began manufacturing fully configured "white box" systems for the dozens of PC clone companies that rapidly sprang up. At its peak in the mid-1990s, Intel manufactured over 15% of all PCs, making it the third-largest supplier at the time.

During the 1990s, Intel Architecture Labs (IAL) was responsible for many of the hardware innovations for the PC, including the PCI Bus, the PCI Express (PCIe) bus, and Universal Serial Bus (USB). IAL's software efforts met with a more mixed fate; its video and graphics software was important in the development of software digital video, but later its efforts were largely overshadowed by competition from Microsoft. The competition between Intel and Microsoft was revealed in testimony by then IAL Vice-President Steven McGeady at the Microsoft antitrust trial (United States v. Microsoft Corp.).

2018 security flaws

In early January 2018, it was reported that all Intel processors made since 1995 (besides Intel Itanium and pre-2013 Intel Atom) have been subject to two security flaws dubbed Meltdown and Spectre.

The impact on performance resulting from software patches is "workload-dependent". Several procedures to help protect home computers and related devices from the Spectre (and Meltdown) security vulnerabilities have been published. Spectre patches have been reported to significantly slow down performance, especially on older computers; on the newer 8th generation Core platforms, benchmark performance drops of 2–14 percent have been measured. Meltdown patches may also produce performance loss. It is believed that "hundreds of millions" of systems could be affected by these flaws.

On March 15, 2018, Intel reported that it will redesign its CPU processors (performance losses to be determined) to protect against the Spectre security vulnerability, and expects to release the newly redesigned processors later in 2018.

On May 3, 2018, eight additional Spectre-class flaws were reported. Intel reported that they are preparing new patches to mitigate these flaws.

On August 14, 2018, Intel disclosed three additional chip flaws referred to as L1 Terminal Fault (L1TF). They reported that previously released microcode updates, along with new, pre-release microcode updates can be used to mitigate these flaws.

Remote Keyboard Android App

Intel has decided to discontinue with their recent Intel Remote Keyboard Android app after encountering several security bugs. This app was launched in early 2015 to help users control Intel single-board computers and Intel NUC. The company has asked Remote Keyboard Users to delete the app at their first convenience.

Solid-state drives (SSD)

An Intel X25-M SSD

 

In 2008, Intel began shipping mainstream solid-state drives (SSDs) with up to 160 GB storage capacities. As with their CPUs, Intel develops SSD chips using ever-smaller nanometer processes. These SSDs make use of industry standards such as NAND flash, mSATA, PCIe, and NVMe. In 2017, Intel introduced SSDs based on 3D XPoint technology under the Optane brand name.

Supercomputers

The Intel Scientific Computers division was founded in 1984 by Justin Rattner, to design and produce parallel computers based on Intel microprocessors connected in hypercube internetwork topology. In 1992, the name was changed to the Intel Supercomputing Systems Division, and development of the iWarp architecture was also subsumed. The division designed several supercomputer systems, including the Intel iPSC/1, iPSC/2, iPSC/860, Paragon and ASCI Red. In November 2014, Intel revealed that it is going to use light beams to speed up supercomputers.

Mobile Linux software

In 2007 Intel formed the Moblin project to create an open source Linux operating system for x86-based mobile devices. Following the success of Google's Android platform which ran exclusively on ARM processors, Intel announced on February 15, 2010, that it would partner with Nokia and merge Moblin with Nokia's ARM-based Maemo project to create MeeGo. MeeGo was supported by the Linux Foundation.

In February 2011 Nokia left the project after partnering with Microsoft, leaving Intel in sole charge of MeeGo. An Intel spokeswoman said it was "disappointed" by Nokia's decision but that Intel was committed to MeeGo. In September 2011 Intel stopped working on MeeGo and partnered with Samsung to create Tizen, a new project hosted by the Linux Foundation. Intel has since been co-developing the Tizen operating system which runs on several Samsung devices.

Competition, antitrust and espionage

Two factors combined to end this dominance: the slowing of PC demand growth beginning in 2000 and the rise of the low-cost PC. By the end of the 1990s, microprocessor performance had outstripped software demand for that CPU power. Aside from high-end server systems and software, whose demand dropped with the end of the "dot-com bubble", consumer systems ran effectively on increasingly low-cost systems after 2000. Intel's strategy of producing ever-more-powerful processors and obsoleting their predecessors stumbled, leaving an opportunity for rapid gains by competitors, notably AMD. This, in turn, lowered the profitability of the processor line and ended an era of unprecedented dominance of the PC hardware by Intel.

Intel's dominance in the x86 microprocessor market led to numerous charges of antitrust violations over the years, including FTC investigations in both the late 1980s and in 1999, and civil actions such as the 1997 suit by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) and a patent suit by Intergraph. Intel's market dominance (at one time it controlled over 85% of the market for 32-bit x86 microprocessors) combined with Intel's own hardball legal tactics (such as its infamous 338 patent suit versus PC manufacturers) made it an attractive target for litigation, but few of the lawsuits ever amounted to anything.

A case of industrial espionage arose in 1995 that involved both Intel and AMD. Bill Gaede, an Argentine formerly employed both at AMD and at Intel's Arizona plant, was arrested for attempting in 1993 to sell the i486 and P5 Pentium designs to AMD and to certain foreign powers. Gaede videotaped data from his computer screen at Intel and mailed it to AMD, which immediately alerted Intel and authorities, resulting in Gaede's arrest. Gaede was convicted and sentenced to 33 months in prison in June 1996.

Use of Intel products by Apple Computer (2005–present)

On June 6, 2005, Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, announced that Apple would be transitioning from its long favored PowerPC architecture to the Intel x86 architecture because the future PowerPC road map was unable to satisfy Apple's needs. The first Macintosh computers containing Intel CPUs were announced on January 10, 2006, and Apple had its entire line of consumer Macs running on Intel processors by early August 2006. The Apple Xserve server was updated to Intel Xeon processors from November 2006 and was offered in a configuration similar to Apple's Mac Pro.

Core 2 Duo advertisement controversy (2007)

In July 2007, the company released a print advertisement for its Intel Core 2 Duo processor featuring six African-American runners appearing to bow down to a Caucasian male inside of an office setting (due to the posture taken by runners on starting blocks). According to Nancy Bhagat, Vice President of Intel Corporate Marketing, viewers found the ad to be "insensitive and insulting", and several Intel executives made public apologies.

Introduction of Classmate PC (2011)

The Classmate PC is the company's first low-cost netbook computer. In 2014, the company released an updated version of the Classmate PC.

Introduction of new mobile processor technology (2011)

In June 2011, Intel introduced the first Pentium mobile processor based on the Sandy Bridge core. The B940, clocked at 2 GHz, is faster than existing or upcoming mobile Celerons, although it is almost identical to dual-core Celeron CPUs in all other aspects. According to IHS iSuppli's report on September 28, 2011, Sandy Bridge chips have helped Intel increase its market share in global processor market to 81.8%, while AMD's market share dropped to 10.4%.

Intel planned to introduce Medfield – a processor for tablets and smartphones – to the market in 2012, as an effort to compete with ARM. As a 32-nanometer processor, Medfield is designed to be energy-efficient, which is one of the core features in ARM's chips.

At the Intel Developers Forum (IDF) 2011 in San Francisco, Intel's partnership with Google was announced. By January 2012, Google's Android 2.3 will use Intel's Atom microprocessor.

Update to server chips (2011)

In July 2011, Intel announced that its server chips, the Xeon series, will use new sensors that can improve data center cooling efficiency.

Introduction of Ivy Bridge 22 nm processors (2011)

In 2011, Intel announced the Ivy Bridge processor family at the Intel Developer Forum. Ivy Bridge supports both DDR3 memory and DDR3L chips.

Development of Personal Office Energy Monitor (POEM) (2011)

As part of its efforts in the Positive Energy Buildings Consortium, Intel has been developing an application, called Personal Office Energy Monitor (POEM), to help office buildings to be more energy-efficient. With this application, employees can get the power consumption info for their office machines, so that they can figure out a better way to save energy in their working environment.

IT Manager series

Intel has introduced some simulation games, starting in 2009 with web-based IT Manager 3: Unseen Forces. In it, the player manages a company's IT department. The goal is to apply technology and skill to enable the company to grow from a small business into a global enterprise. The game has since been discontinued and succeeded in 2012 by the web-based multiplayer game IT Manager: Duels, which is no longer available.

Car Security System (2011)

In 2011, Intel announced that it is working on a car security system that connects to smartphones via an application. The application works by streaming video to a cloud service if a car armed with the system is broken into.

High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection

Intel also developed High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) to prevent access of digital audio and video content as it travels across connections.

Move from Wintel desktop to open mobile platforms (2013–2014)

In 2013, Intel's Kirk Skaugen said that Intel's exclusive focus on Microsoft platforms was a thing of the past and that they would now support all "tier-one operating systems" such as Linux, Android, iOS, and Chrome.

In 2014, Intel cut thousands of employees in response to "evolving market trends", and offered to subsidize manufacturers for the extra costs involved in using Intel chips in their tablets.

Introduction of Haswell processors (2013)

In June 2013, Intel unveiled its fourth generation of Intel Core processors (Haswell) in an event named Computex in Taipei.

Wearable fashion (2014)

On January 6, 2014, Intel announced that it was "teaming with the Council of Fashion Designers of America, Barneys New York and Opening Ceremony around the wearable tech field."

Intel developed a reference design for wearable smart earbuds that provide biometric and fitness information. The Intel smart earbuds provide full stereo audio, and monitor heart rate, while the applications on the user’s phone keep track of run distance and calories burned. 

CNBC reported that Intel eliminated the division that worked on health wearables in 2017.

Fog computing

On November 19, 2015, Intel, alongside ARM Holdings, Dell, Cisco Systems, Microsoft, and Princeton University, founded the OpenFog Consortium, to promote interests and development in fog computing. Intel's Chief Strategist for the IoT Strategy and Technology Office, Jeff Faders, became the consortium's first president.

Conflict-free production

In 2009, Intel announced that it planned to undertake an effort to remove conflict resources—materials sourced from mines whose profits are used to fund armed militant groups, particularly within the Democratic Republic of the Congo—from its supply chain. Intel sought conflict-free sources of the precious metals common to electronics from within the country, using a system of first- and third-party audits, as well as input from the Enough Project and other organizations. During a keynote address at Consumer Electronics Show 2014, Intel CEO at the time, Brian Krzanich, announced that the company's microprocessors would henceforth be conflict free. In 2016, Intel stated that it had expected its entire supply chain to be conflict-free by the end of the year.

Self driving cars

Intel is one of the biggest stakeholders in the self-driving car industry, having joined the race in mid 2017 after joining forces with Mobileye. The company is also one of the first in the sector to research consumer acceptance, after an AAA report quoted a 78% nonacceptance rate of the technology in the US.

Safety levels of the technology, the thought of abandoning control to a machine, and psychological comfort of passengers in such situations were the major discussion topics initially. The commuters also stated that they did not want to see everything the car was doing. This was primarily a referral to the auto-steering wheel with no one sitting in the driving seat. Intel also learned that voice control regulator is vital, and the interface between the humans and machine eases the discomfort condition, and brings some sense of control back. It is important to mention that Intel included only 10 people in this study, which makes the study less credible. In a video posted on YouTube, Intel accepted this fact and called for further testing.

Corporate affairs

Leadership and corporate structure

Paul Otellini, Craig Barrett and Sean Maloney (2006)

 

Robert Noyce was Intel's CEO at its founding in 1968, followed by co-founder Gordon Moore in 1975. Andy Grove became the company's president in 1979 and added the CEO title in 1987 when Moore became chairman. In 1998, Grove succeeded Moore as Chairman, and Craig Barrett, already company president, took over. On May 18, 2005, Barrett handed the reins of the company over to Paul Otellini, who had been the company president and COO and who was responsible for Intel's design win in the original IBM PC. The board of directors elected Otellini as President and CEO, and Barrett replaced Grove as Chairman of the Board. Grove stepped down as chairman but is retained as a special adviser. In May 2009, Barrett stepped down as chairman of the Board and was succeeded by Jane Shaw. In May 2012, Intel vice chairman Andy Bryant, who had held the posts of CFO (1994) and Chief Administrative Officer (2007) at Intel, succeeded Shaw as executive chairman.

In November 2012, president and CEO Paul Otellini announced that he would step down in May 2013 at the age of 62, three years before the company's mandatory retirement age. During a six-month transition period, Intel's board of directors commenced a search process for the next CEO, in which it considered both internal managers and external candidates such as Sanjay Jha and Patrick Gelsinger. Financial results revealed that, under Otellini, Intel's revenue increased by 55.8 percent (US$34.2 to 53.3 billion), while its net income increased by 46.7% (US$7.5 billion to 11 billion).

On May 2, 2013, Executive Vice President and COO Brian Krzanich was elected as Intel's sixth CEO, a selection that became effective on May 16, 2013, at the company's annual meeting. Reportedly, the board concluded that an insider could proceed with the role and exert an impact more quickly, without the need to learn Intel's processes, and Krzanich was selected on such a basis. Intel's software head Renée James was selected as president of the company, a role that is second to the CEO position.

As of May 2013, Intel's board of directors consists of Andy Bryant, John Donahoe, Frank Yeary, Ambassador Charlene Barshefsky, Susan Decker, Reed Hundt, Paul Otellini, James Plummer, David Pottruck, and David Yoffie and Creative director will.i.am. The board was described by former Financial Times journalist Tom Foremski as "an exemplary example of corporate governance of the highest order" and received a rating of ten from GovernanceMetrics International, a form of recognition that has only been awarded to twenty-one other corporate boards worldwide.

On June 21, 2018, Intel announced the resignation of Brian Krzanich as CEO, with the exposure of a relationship he had with an employee. Bob Swan was named interim CEO, as the Board began a search for a permanent CEO. 

On January 31, 2019, Swan transitioned from his role as CFO and interim CEO and was named by the Board as the 7th CEO to lead the company. 

Ownership

As of 2017 Intel shares are mainly held by institutional investors (Vanguard group, BlackRock, Capital Group Companies, State Street Corporation and others)

Employment

Intel microprocessor facility in Costa Rica was responsible in 2006 for 20% of Costa Rican exports and 4.9% of the country's GDP.

 

The firm promotes very heavily from within, most notably in its executive suite. The company has resisted the trend toward outsider CEOs. Paul Otellini was a 30-year veteran of the company when he assumed the role of CEO. All of his top lieutenants have risen through the ranks after many years with the firm. In many cases, Intel's top executives have spent their entire working careers with Intel.

Intel has a mandatory retirement policy for its CEOs when they reach age 65. Andy Grove retired at 62, while both Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore retired at 58. Grove retired as Chairman and as a member of the board of directors in 2005 at age 68.

Intel's headquarters are located in Santa Clara, California, and the company has operations around the world. Its largest workforce concentration anywhere is in Washington County, Oregon (in the Portland metropolitan area's "Silicon Forest"), with 18,600 employees at several facilities. Outside the United States, the company has facilities in China, Costa Rica, Malaysia, Israel, Ireland, India, Russia, Argentina and Vietnam, in 63 countries and regions internationally. In the U.S. Intel employs significant numbers of people in California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, Washington and Utah. In Oregon, Intel is the state's largest private employer. The company is the largest industrial employer in New Mexico while in Arizona the company has over 10,000 employees.

Intel invests heavily in research in China and about 100 researchers – or 10% of the total number of researchers from Intel – are located in Beijing.

In 2011, the Israeli government offered Intel $290 million to expand in the country. As a condition, Intel would employ 1,500 more workers in Kiryat Gat and between 600–1000 workers in the north.

In January 2014, it was reported that Intel would cut about 5,000 jobs from its work force of 107,000. The announcement was made a day after it reported earnings that missed analyst targets.

In March 2014, it was reported that Intel would embark upon a $6 billion plan to expand its activities in Israel. The plan calls for continued investment in existing and new Intel plants until 2030. As of 2014 Intel employs 10,000 workers at four development centers and two production plants in Israel.

Diversity

Intel has a Diversity Initiative, including employee diversity groups as well as supplier diversity programs. Like many companies with employee diversity groups, they include groups based on race and nationality as well as sexual identity and religion. In 1994, Intel sanctioned one of the earliest corporate Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender employee groups, and supports a Muslim employees group, a Jewish employees group, and a Bible-based Christian group.

Intel received a 100% rating on the first Corporate Equality Index released by the Human Rights Campaign in 2002. It has maintained this rating in 2003 and 2004. In addition, the company was named one of the 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers in 2005 by Working Mother magazine.

In January 2015, Intel announced the investment of $300 million over the next five years to enhance gender and racial diversity in their own company as well as the technology industry as a whole.

In February 2016, Intel released its Global Diversity & Inclusion 2015 Annual Report. The male-female mix of US employees was reported as 75.2% men and 24.8% women. For US employees in technical roles, the mix was reported as 79.8% male and 20.1% female. NPR reports that Intel is facing a retention problem (particularly for African Americans), not just a pipeline problem.

Economic impact in Oregon in 2009

In 2011, ECONorthwest conducted an economic impact analysis of Intel's economic contribution to the state of Oregon. The report found that in 2009 "the total economic impacts attributed to Intel's operations, capital spending, contributions and taxes amounted to almost $14.6 billion in activity, including $4.3 billion in personal income and 59,990 jobs". Through multiplier effects, every 10 Intel jobs supported, on average, was found to create 31 jobs in other sectors of the economy.

School funding in New Mexico in 1997

In Rio Rancho, New Mexico, Intel is the leading employer. In 1997, a community partnership between Sandoval County and Intel Corporation funded and built Rio Rancho High School.

Ultrabook fund (2011)

In 2011, Intel Capital announced a new fund to support startups working on technologies in line with the company's concept for next generation notebooks. The company is setting aside a $300 million fund to be spent over the next three to four years in areas related to ultrabooks. Intel announced the ultrabook concept at Computex in 2011. The ultrabook is defined as a thin (less than 0.8 inches [~2 cm] thick) notebook that utilizes Intel processors and also incorporates tablet features such as a touch screen and long battery life.

At the Intel Developers Forum in 2011, four Taiwan ODMs showed prototype ultrabooks that used Intel's Ivy Bridge chips. Intel plans to improve power consumption of its chips for ultrabooks, like new Ivy Bridge processors in 2013, which will only have 10W default thermal design power.

Intel's goal for Ultrabook's price is below $1000; however, according to two presidents from Acer and Compaq, this goal will not be achieved if Intel does not lower the price of its chips.

Marketing

Intel Inside

Intel has become one of the world's most recognizable computer brands following its long-running Intel Inside campaign. The idea for "Intel Inside" came out of a meeting between Intel and one of the major computer resellers, MicroAge.

In the late 1980s, Intel's market share was being seriously eroded by upstart competitors such as Advanced Micro Devices (now AMD), Zilog, and others who had started to sell their less expensive microprocessors to computer manufacturers. This was because, by using cheaper processors, manufacturers could make cheaper computers and gain more market share in an increasingly price-sensitive market. In 1989, Intel's Dennis Carter visited MicroAge's headquarters in Tempe, Arizona, to meet with MicroAge's VP of Marketing, Ron Mion. MicroAge had become one of the largest distributors of Compaq, IBM, HP, and others and thus was a primary – although indirect – driver of demand for microprocessors. Intel wanted MicroAge to petition its computer suppliers to favor Intel chips. However, Mion felt that the marketplace should decide which processors they wanted. Intel's counterargument was that it would be too difficult to educate PC buyers on why Intel microprocessors were worth paying more for ... and they were right. But Mion felt that the public didn't really need to fully understand why Intel chips were better, they just needed to feel they were better. So Mion proposed a market test. Intel would pay for a MicroAge billboard somewhere saying, "If you're buying a personal computer, make sure it has Intel inside." In turn, MicroAge would put "Intel Inside" stickers on the Intel-based computers in their stores in that area. To make the test easier to monitor, Mion decided to do the test in Boulder, Colorado, where it had a single store. Virtually overnight, the sales of personal computers in that store dramatically shifted to Intel-based PCs. Intel very quickly adopted "Intel Inside" as its primary branding and rolled it out worldwide.

As is often the case with computer lore, other tidbits have been combined to explain how things evolved. "Intel Inside" has not escaped that tendency and there are other "explanations" that had been floating around. 

Intel's branding campaign started with "The Computer Inside" tagline in 1990 in the US and Europe. The Japan chapter of Intel proposed an "Intel in it" tagline and kicked off the Japanese campaign by hosting EKI-KON (meaning "Station Concert" in Japanese) at the Tokyo railway station dome on Christmas Day, December 25, 1990. Several months later, "The Computer Inside" incorporated the Japan idea to become "Intel Inside" which eventually elevated to the worldwide branding campaign in 1991, by Intel marketing manager Dennis Carter. The case study of the Inside Intel Inside was put together by Harvard Business School. The five-note jingle was introduced in 1994 and by its tenth anniversary was being heard in 130 countries around the world. The initial branding agency for the "Intel Inside" campaign was DahlinSmithWhite Advertising of Salt Lake City. The Intel swirl logo was the work of DahlinSmithWhite art director Steve Grigg under the direction of Intel president and CEO Andy Grove.

The Intel Inside advertising campaign sought public brand loyalty and awareness of Intel processors in consumer computers. Intel paid some of the advertiser's costs for an ad that used the Intel Inside logo and xylo-marimba jingle.

2009–2011 Pentium Inside badge design

 

In 2008, Intel planned to shift the emphasis of its Intel Inside campaign from traditional media such as television and print to newer media such as the Internet. Intel required that a minimum of 35% of the money it provided to the companies in its co-op program be used for online marketing. The Intel 2010 annual financial report indicated that $1.8 billion (6% of the gross margin and nearly 16% of the total net income) was allocated to all advertising with Intel Inside being part of that.

Sonic logo

The famous D♭  D♭  G♭  D♭  A♭ xylophone/xylomarimba jingle, sonic logo, tag, audio mnemonic was produced by Musikvergnuegen and written by Walter Werzowa, once a member of the Austrian 1980s sampling band Edelweiss. The sonic Intel logo was remade in 1999 to coincide with the launch of the Pentium III, and a second time in 2004 to coincide with the new logo change (although it overlapped with the 1999 version and was not mainstreamed until the launch of the Core processors in 2006), with the melody unchanged. Advertisements for products featuring Intel processors with prominent MMX branding featured a version of the jingle with an embellishment after the final note.

Processor naming strategy

In 2006, Intel expanded its promotion of open specification platforms beyond Centrino, to include the Viiv media center PC and the business desktop Intel vPro. 

In mid-January 2006, Intel announced that they were dropping the long running Pentium name from their processors. The Pentium name was first used to refer to the P5 core Intel processors and was done to comply with court rulings that prevent the trademarking of a string of numbers, so competitors could not just call their processor the same name, as had been done with the prior 386 and 486 processors (both of which had copies manufactured by IBM and AMD). They phased out the Pentium names from mobile processors first, when the new Yonah chips, branded Core Solo and Core Duo, were released. The desktop processors changed when the Core 2 line of processors were released. By 2009, Intel was using a good-better-best strategy with Celeron being good, Pentium better, and the Intel Core family representing the best the company has to offer.

According to spokesman Bill Calder, Intel has maintained only the Celeron brand, the Atom brand for netbooks and the vPro lineup for businesses. Since late 2009, Intel's mainstream processors have been called Celeron, Pentium, Core i3, Core i5, and Core i7, in order of performance from lowest to highest. The first generation core products carry a 3 digit name, such as i5 750, and the second generation products carry a 4 digit name, such as the i5 2500. In both cases, a K at the end of it shows that it is an unlocked processor, enabling additional overclocking abilities (for instance, 2500K). vPro products will carry the Intel Core i7 vPro processor or the Intel Core i5 vPro processor name. In October 2011, Intel started to sell its Core i7-2700K "Sandy Bridge" chip to customers worldwide.

Since 2010, "Centrino" is only being applied to Intel's WiMAX and Wi-Fi technologies.

Typography

Neo Sans Intel is a customized version of Neo Sans based on the Neo Sans and Neo Tech, designed by Sebastian Lester in 2004.

Intel Clear is a global font announced in 2014 designed for to be used across all communications. The font family was designed by Red Peek Branding and Daltan Maag Ltd. Initially available in Latin, Greek and Cyrillic scripts, it replaced Neo Sans Intel as the company's corporate typeface. Intel Clear Hebrew, Intel Clear Arabic were added by Daltan Maag Ltd.

Intel Brand Book

It is a book produced by Red Peak Branding as part of new brand identity campaign, celebrating Intel's achievements while setting the new standard for what Intel looks, feels and sounds like.

Open source support

Intel has a significant participation in the open source communities since 1999. For example, in 2006 Intel released MIT-licensed X.org drivers for their integrated graphic cards of the i965 family of chipsets. Intel released FreeBSD drivers for some networking cards, available under a BSD-compatible license, which were also ported to OpenBSD. Binary firmware files for non-wireless Ethernet devices were also released under a BSD licence allowing free redistribution. Intel ran the Moblin project until April 23, 2009, when they handed the project over to the Linux Foundation. Intel also runs the LessWatts.org campaigns.

However, after the release of the wireless products called Intel Pro/Wireless 2100, 2200BG/2225BG/2915ABG and 3945ABG in 2005, Intel was criticized for not granting free redistribution rights for the firmware that must be included in the operating system for the wireless devices to operate. As a result of this, Intel became a target of campaigns to allow free operating systems to include binary firmware on terms acceptable to the open source community. Linspire-Linux creator Michael Robertson outlined the difficult position that Intel was in releasing to open source, as Intel did not want to upset their large customer Microsoft. Theo de Raadt of OpenBSD also claimed that Intel is being "an Open Source fraud" after an Intel employee presented a distorted view of the situation at an open-source conference. In spite of the significant negative attention Intel received as a result of the wireless dealings, the binary firmware still has not gained a license compatible with free software principles.

Declining PC sales

Due to declining PC sales, in 2016 Intel cut 12,000 jobs.

Litigation and regulatory issues

Patent infringement litigation (2006–2007)

In October 2006, a Transmeta lawsuit was filed against Intel for patent infringement on computer architecture and power efficiency technologies. The lawsuit was settled in October 2007, with Intel agreeing to pay US$150 million initially and US$20 million per year for the next five years. Both companies agreed to drop lawsuits against each other, while Intel was granted a perpetual non-exclusive license to use current and future patented Transmeta technologies in its chips for 10 years.

Anti-trust allegations and litigation (2005–2009)

In September 2005, Intel filed a response to an AMD lawsuit, disputing AMD's claims, and claiming that Intel's business practices are fair and lawful. In a rebuttal, Intel deconstructed AMD's offensive strategy and argued that AMD struggled largely as a result of its own bad business decisions, including underinvestment in essential manufacturing capacity and excessive reliance on contracting out chip foundries. Legal analysts predicted the lawsuit would drag on for a number of years since Intel's initial response indicated its unwillingness to settle with AMD. In 2008 a court date was finally set, but in 2009, Intel settled with a $1.25 billion payout to AMD (see below).

On November 4, 2009, New York's attorney general filed an antitrust lawsuit against Intel Corp, claiming the company used "illegal threats and collusion" to dominate the market for computer microprocessors. 

On November 12, 2009, AMD agreed to drop the antitrust lawsuit against Intel in exchange for $1.25 billion. A joint press release published by the two chip makers stated "While the relationship between the two companies has been difficult in the past, this agreement ends the legal disputes and enables the companies to focus all of our efforts on product innovation and development."

An antitrust lawsuit and a class-action suit relating to cold calling employees of other companies has been settled.

Allegations by Japan Fair Trade Commission (2005)

In 2005, the local Fair Trade Commission found that Intel violated the Japanese Antimonopoly Act. The commission ordered Intel to eliminate discounts that had discriminated against AMD. To avoid a trial, Intel agreed to comply with the order.

Allegations by the European Union (2007–2008)

In July 2007, the European Commission accused Intel of anti-competitive practices, mostly against AMD. The allegations, going back to 2003, include giving preferential prices to computer makers buying most or all of their chips from Intel, paying computer makers to delay or cancel the launch of products using AMD chips, and providing chips at below standard cost to governments and educational institutions. Intel responded that the allegations were unfounded and instead qualified its market behavior as consumer-friendly. General counsel Bruce Sewell responded that the Commission had misunderstood some factual assumptions as to pricing and manufacturing costs.

In February 2008, Intel stated that its office in Munich had been raided by European Union regulators. Intel reported that it was cooperating with investigators. Intel faced a fine of up to 10% of its annual revenue, if found guilty of stifling competition. AMD subsequently launched a website promoting these allegations. In June 2008, the EU filed new charges against Intel. In May 2009, the EU found that Intel had engaged in anti-competitive practices and subsequently fined Intel €1.06 billion (US$1.44 billion), a record amount. Intel was found to have paid companies, including Acer, Dell, HP, Lenovo and NEC, to exclusively use Intel chips in their products, and therefore harmed other companies including AMD. The European Commission said that Intel had deliberately acted to keep competitors out of the computer chip market and in doing so had made a "serious and sustained violation of the EU's antitrust rules". In addition to the fine, Intel was ordered by the Commission to immediately cease all illegal practices. Intel has stated that they will appeal against the Commission's verdict. In June 2014, the General Court, which sits below the European Court of Justice, rejected the appeal.

Allegations by regulators in South Korea (2007)

In September 2007, South Korean regulators accused Intel of breaking antitrust law. The investigation began in February 2006, when officials raided Intel's South Korean offices. The company risked a penalty of up to 3% of its annual sales, if found guilty. In June 2008, the Fair Trade Commission ordered Intel to pay a fine of US$25.5 million for taking advantage of its dominant position to offer incentives to major Korean PC manufacturers on the condition of not buying products from AMD.

Allegations by regulators in the United States (2008–2010)

New York started an investigation of Intel in January 2008 on whether the company violated antitrust laws in pricing and sales of its microprocessors. In June 2008, the Federal Trade Commission also began an antitrust investigation of the case. In December 2009, the FTC announced it would initiate an administrative proceeding against Intel in September 2010.

In November 2009, following a two-year investigation, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo sued Intel, accusing them of bribery and coercion, claiming that Intel bribed computer makers to buy more of their chips than those of their rivals, and threatened to withdraw these payments if the computer makers were perceived as working too closely with its competitors. Intel has denied these claims.

On July 22, 2010, Dell agreed to a settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to pay $100M in penalties resulting from charges that Dell did not accurately disclose accounting information to investors. In particular, the SEC charged that from 2002 to 2006, Dell had an agreement with Intel to receive rebates in exchange for not using chips manufactured by AMD. These substantial rebates were not disclosed to investors, but were used to help meet investor expectations regarding the company's financial performance; "These exclusivity payments grew from 10 percent of Dell's operating income in FY 2003 to 38 percent in FY 2006, and peaked at 76 percent in the first quarter of FY 2007." Dell eventually did adopt AMD as a secondary supplier in 2006, and Intel subsequently stopped their rebates, causing Dell's financial performance to fall.

Corporate responsibility record

Intel has been accused by some residents of Rio Rancho, New Mexico of allowing VOCs to be released in excess of their pollution permit. One resident claimed that a release of 1.4 tons of carbon tetrachloride was measured from one acid scrubber during the fourth quarter of 2003 but an emission factor allowed Intel to report no carbon tetrachloride emissions for all of 2003.

Another resident alleges that Intel was responsible for the release of other VOCs from their Rio Rancho site and that a necropsy of lung tissue from two deceased dogs in the area indicated trace amounts of toluene, hexane, ethylbenzene, and xylene isomers, all of which are solvents used in industrial settings but also commonly found in gasoline, retail paint thinners and retail solvents. During a sub-committee meeting of the New Mexico Environment Improvement Board, a resident claimed that Intel's own reports documented more than 1,580 pounds (720 kg) of VOCs were released in June and July 2006.

Intel's environmental performance is published annually in their corporate responsibility report.

In its 2012 rankings on the progress of consumer electronics companies relating to conflict minerals, the Enough Project rated Intel the best of 24 companies, calling it a "Pioneer of progress". In 2014, chief executive Brian Krzanich urged the rest of the industry to follow Intel's lead by also shunning conflict minerals.

Age discrimination complaints

Intel has faced complaints of age discrimination in firing and layoffs. Intel was sued in 1993 by nine former employees, over allegations that they were laid off because they were over the age of 40.

A group called FACE Intel (Former and Current Employees of Intel) claims that Intel weeds out older employees. FACE Intel claims that more than 90 percent of people who have been laid off or fired from Intel are over the age of 40. Upside magazine requested data from Intel breaking out its hiring and firing by age, but the company declined to provide any. Intel has denied that age plays any role in Intel's employment practices. FACE Intel was founded by Ken Hamidi, who was fired from Intel in 1995 at the age of 47. Hamidi was blocked in a 1999 court decision from using Intel's email system to distribute criticism of the company to employees, which overturned in 2003 in Intel Corp. v. Hamidi.

Tax dispute in India

In August 2016, Indian officials of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) parked garbage trucks on Intel's campus and threatened to dump them for evading payment of property taxes between 2007 and 2008, to the tune of 340 million Indian rupees (4.9 million USD). Intel had reportedly been paying taxes as a non-air-conditioned office, when the campus in fact had central air conditioning. Other factors, such as land acquisition and construction improvements, added to the tax burden. Previously, Intel had appealed the demand in the Karnataka high court in July, during which the court ordered Intel to pay BBMP half the owed amount (170 million rupees, or 2.4 million USD) plus arrears by August 28 of that year.