Intel is stepping up its efforts to build custom chips for online giants like eBay and Facebook, giving them a boost in performance and, Intel hopes, another reason to keep buying its microprocessors. The chipmaker is working with the big online firms to embed programmable chips, called FPGAs, in the same chip package alongside its Xeon server processors. Those FPGAs can be programmed to run unique algorithms that each online firm depends on to run its services.