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Tech Valley News
AMD Confirms Plans to Build Chip Plant
Two years after Advanced Micro Devices first chose Tech Valley as the location for its next chip fab, AMD confirmed its plans to build the $4.5 billion leading-edge facility at the Luther Forest Technology Campus in Saratoga County.
Construction is expected to begin next summer and would start generating revenue in late 2011 or early 2012.
The plant is expected to create 1,465 high paying jobs – ranging from $40,000 to more than $100,000 a year – and generate an additional 5,000 jobs in the region.
The plant’s annual payroll is expected to be $88 million. The additional jobs in the region created to support the fab are expected to have an annual payroll of more than $200 million.
In addition, AMD estimates 4,300 construction jobs will be created during the two-year construction period, with an annual payroll of $210 million.
It will be the only independently-managed, leading-edge semiconductor manufacturing foundry in the U.S.
“It’s an important day for the region,” F. Michael Tucker, CEO of the Center for Economic Growth said. “It’s a new dawn, really.”
AMD’s investment is expected to be about $1 billion more than initially announced, as the size of the plant has been increased by 30,000 square feet from the initial plans.
“As all of this kind of gets untangled and we see where those opportunities are, I think it just is a better deal than we actually even originally thought,” Luther Forest Tech Park Executive Director Mike Relyea said.
The new design calls for a larger clean room that will increase the project to 180,000 square feet.
AMD could build as many as three fabs at the Luther Forest Technology Campus.
“Worldwide semiconductor innovation is centered in Tech Valley, which already hosts IBM, Sematech, the Albany NanoTech center and many more leading companies, R&D centers and universities,” Sen. Hillary Clinton said. “AMD’s announcement is an important part of a strategy to build a cluster of competitiveness that is key to the future growth and creation of jobs in Tech Valley.”
“This is great news about Tech Valley and its economic future. This investment will establish Tech Valley once and for all as one of the premier high-tech, nanotechnology centers of the world,” Sen. Charles Schumer said.
AMD spun off its semiconductor manufacturing operations from the parent company. The new organization – a partnership with Advanced Technology Investment Company of Abu Dhabi – will be known temporarily as The Foundry Co. It will move forward and seek to land the $1.2 billion in state incentives promised to AMD to build the plant. The Foundry Company will be based in the U.S.
AMD will focus on chip design and no longer manufacture the chips.
Hector Ruiz, AMD’s chairman, will assume the same role with The Foundry Co. when the deal is finalized. Doug Grose, AMD’s senior vice president of manufacturing operations, will become the new company’s CEO.
“Tech Valley is in a unique place,” Grose said. “Tech Valley competed long and hard for this opportunity. Government and industry leaders here have a plan to build an ecosystem of semiconductor innovation and we are an important part of that plan.”
ATIC – formed by the government of Abu Dhabi to invest in advanced technology opportunities – will invest $2.1 billion to purchase its stake in The Foundry Company. The funds will be used to build the new state-of-the-art facility in Tech Valley. ATIC has also committed between $3.6 billion to $6 billion during the next five years to fund the company’s expansion.
The federal government will need to approve the transaction which is expected early next year. The Foundry Company plans to have an office on-site by Dec. 1.
“The decision by AMD to build a computer chip fabrication facility in Luther Forest, several years after the company was introduced to Tech Valley through the Sematech program at the UAlbany NanoCollege, further demonstrates the success of the pioneering vision and strategic investments made in nanotechnology, which have made Tech Valley a recognized global leader in cutting-edge nanoscale science and engineering,” Alain E. Kaloyeros, senior vice president and CEO of the University at Albany’s College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering said. “The combination of AMD’s state-of-the-art computer chip manufacturing and the UAlbanyNanoCollege’s unparalleled nanotechnology education, research and development initiatives conducted in partnership with the world’s leading technology companies will ensure continued high-tech economic growth while providing new career and business opportunities that will positively impact residents across Tech Valley.”
AMD also announced that it plans to give Malta and Stillwater – the towns that share the Luther Forest Technology Campus – a total of $5 million over four years. About $1 million of that would create a 32-acre ballfield complex at the campus for public use.
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