Obama on TEM, reusable IP

President Obama capped his February 18 visit to Intel Hillsboro’s Ronler Acres facility with a trip to the company’s TEM lab, where he took a look at some atoms using the facility’s FEI Titan transmission-electron microscope. “I had a chance to see everything from an electron microscope to the inside of your microprocessor facility, the clean room,” he said, according to prepared remarks to Intel employees.

The President experienced first-hand the power of FEI’s Titan TEM to see sub-Angstrom-level samples.

The bulk of the President’s remarks praised Intel for innovation and job creation. “As [Intel CEO] Paul [Otellini] just mentioned, three-fourths of your manufacturing still happens right here in the United States,” he said, adding, “This year you’ll hire another 4000 American workers. You’ll create good construction jobs upgrading your facilities and building new plants in Arizona and right here in Oregon.”

He continued, “…this kind of commitment has always been part of Intel’s philosophy. The founder of this company, the legendary Andy Grove, has said that he’s always felt two obligations. One obligation is to your shareholders. But the other obligation is to America, because a lot of what Intel has achieved has been made possible, in Andy’s words, ‘by a climate of democracy, an economic climate, and investment climate provided by our domicile, the United States.’”

But, while speaking at Intel, Obama had special praise for the science students he visited during his trip, saying, “And I have to say, for all the gadgets you’ve got here, what actually most impressed me were the students and the science projects that I just had a chance to see. It gave [high school boys] a chance to talk about things like quantum ternary algorithms, and it gave me a chance to nod my head and pretend that I understood what they were talking about…. Then we went over to meet some seventh graders, six girls, and it was wonderful—all girls—who had started a science program after school that involved Legos”—the reusable IP of the pre-college set.

Viewing Legos as more his speed than quantum ternary algorithms, Obama did note that Legos have changed, saying, “I used to build some pretty mean Lego towers when I was a kid. I thought I could participate—only these students used their Legos to build models—to build robots that were programmable to model brains that could repair broken bones. So I guess that’s different than towers.”

See related post, “Obama support and tech: Otellini on jobs council, R&D tax credit, more.”