Intel will be investing between $6 billion and $8 billion to develop and upgrade facilities at its Arizona and Oregon plants.

The investment, which was announced by Intel today, will create 6,000-8,000 construction jobs and 800-1,000 permanent high-tech jobs. The company says the investment also will allow Intel to maintain its current manufacturing employment base at its U.S. sites. Intel’s operations in Arizona are located in Chandler

The investment also will pay for a new development fab in Oregon, as well as upgrades to Intel’s four four existing fabs to manufacture the next-generation 22-nanometer (nm) process technology. The first 22nm microprocessors, codenamed Ivy Bridge, will be in production in late 2011.

“The most immediate impact of our multibillion-dollar investment will be the thousands of jobs associated with building a new fab and upgrading four others, and the high-wage, high-tech manufacturing jobs that follow,” said Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini.

This new capital expenditure follows a U.S. investment announcement made in February 2009 to support state-of-the-art upgrades to its manufacturing process. Those upgrades resulted in 32nm process technology that has already produced computer chips being used today in PCs, servers, embedded and mobile devices around the world.