Fortune Data Centers

World-Class Infrastructure in Hillsboro

When Intel began to expand 30 years ago, and needed to move out of “Silicon Valley” to escape the high operating costs caused by high taxes and high power costs, they went through the same site selection process that we did, and came to the same conclusion that we have. They chose Hillsboro, OR for its lack of sales and property tax, cheap and reliable power, easy access and seismic stability.

Hillsboro is now Intel’s largest site in the world, and includes three large campuses: Ronler Acres, Jones Farm, and Hawthorn Farm, along with several smaller campuses that employ about 16,000 workers. Other semiconductor and high-tech manufacturers have followed Intel to Hillsboro, creating the “Silicon Forest”.

Just as in Silicon Valley, an impressive industrial support infrastructure has grown in Silicon Forest. This includes a myriad of vendors who service and support the generators, utility feeds and substations, electrical switchgear, UPS and PDUs, chillers, cooling towers and air-handling units that provide power and cooling to these mission-critical operations. There are also three local diesel fuel suppliers.

PGE (Portland General Electric, the regional electric utility) has installed its four highest-reliability substations in Hillsboro, including the triply-redundant Sunset substation, which is the highest reliability substation in the western United States. The Sunset substation consistently exceeds SEMI F47, which is the semiconductor industry’s standard for voltage sags on the AC mains supply to specific depths and durations. The semiconductor industry’s very sensitive equipment operating on unconditioned power that meets this standard will operate without fail.

The Sunset substation feeds Fortune Oregon 1.

The Bonneville Power Administration (federal hydro power utility) has its 500mW Keeler distribution substation in Hillsboro. This substation supplies power to the region and insures that there won’t be any lack of supply in the foreseeable future.