Jeff Gelles: Obama in Arizona to applaud Intel as a tech leader in American manufacturing

In technology, Intel is the ultimate inside player - so much so that it built an entire marketing campaign, "Intel Inside," around partnerships with companies that power their products with Intel microprocessors.

But on Wednesday - a day after Apple's announcement that it made a stunning $13 billion in profits in the last three months of 2011 - the California chipmaker was once again out front, in the spotlight thanks to a visit by President Obama a day after his State of the Union address.

Apple is riding high on the success of iPhones and iPads assembled in China under conditions that have lately drawn increased scrutiny. For the second time in a year, Obama was highlighting Intel's role as a technology leader that hasn't given up on American manufacturing - this time, by visiting a new plant in Chandler, Ariz., where Intel expects to employ about 4,000 people.

Apple is anything but alone in making its devices in China - that's where many of Intel's chips will wind up, often en route right back to the American marketplace inside computers, smartphones and tablets bearing the logos of Intel's many partners.

But Obama's shout-out to Intel - which helped put the silicon in Silicon Valley - highlights a company whose key role in the last half-century's technology explosion is often underplayed. Intel may not make products you can buy at Best Buy or from your wireless carrier, but it's helping design the future for a range of devices, including many poised to compete with Apple's signature iPhones and iPads.

Intel, in fact, is the company whose cofounder Gordon Moore gave the world "Moore's Law" - an observation and prediction that the number of transistors that could be fit onto an integrated circuit would double roughly every two years.

It's been nearly 50 years since Moore first offered his formulation, and although he later allowed that it would eventually run into the limits of physics, his prediction of exponential growth has so far passed the test of time.

Earlier this month, at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Intel CEO Paul Otellini rattled off some numbers that reflect the consequences of Moore's Law - numbers far more astounding, in their own way, than Apple's sales figures.