Intel researchers aim to think big while staying close to development

When semiconductor superpower Intel launched its first long-term research effort a little more than 2 years ago, the fledgling Microcomputer Research Laboratory (MRL) was allocated space in the corporate headquarters building in Santa Clara, California. Roughly half the staff came from Intel's own development operations. Ironically, though, these steps to ensure that researchers remained attuned to business needs worked so well that senior vice president Albert Yu concluded his new staff sometimes thought more like developers than researchers. Yu instituted a few basic steps to help people break out of the box of thinking in conventional time horizons. For instance, Yu meets each month with a different research team.