Tech Valley News
Tech Valley Lands $3.2B Chip Plant
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) will build a $3.2 billion computer microchip fabrication plant (or “fab”) at Tech Valley’s Luther Forest Technology Campus. Lured by state officials – in part with a $1.2 billion incentive package – the semiconductor company plans to build a 1.2 million square foot facility that will employ up to 1,200 workers once it is operational.
A second facility at the 1,350-acre site could also be built by AMD. Luther Forest could accommodate four chip plants.
Construction is to begin in July 2007 and be completed by July 2009. The fab should be fully operational sometime between January 2012 and January 2014.
“This is tremendous news for Tech Valley,” said U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer.
“I have not seen as long-term and well-crafted a vision for an area as I have seen in this part of New York,” said Hector Ruiz, AMD's chairman and CEO. “Everybody is going to benefit from this project tremendously.”
The plant will be one of a few in the United States that will create microprocessors on 300 mm silicon discs. Older facilities 200 mm discs. The larger discs enable chip makers to manufacture more microprocessors.
And as semiconductor components shrink in size, AMD became more attracted to the region because having manufacturing operations near joint research and development facilities – such as Albany Nanotech – would support faster time to market.
“We think this is going to make a big impact on U.S. global competitiveness,” Ruiz said.
“This area is really ripe for development with the combination of educational institutions, people and facilities,” Ruiz said.
Landing the AMD fab “was contingent on our ability to out-compete some other areas, including foreign countries, that were competing for those jobs,” New York Governor George Pataki said. “In the future, we believe it's going to be an enormous fiscal as well as an economic benefit for the people of this state.”
Kelly Lovell, chief executive office of the Center for Economic Growth, told the Times Union that the plant could create 6,000-10,000 new jobs for the region. Positions would be created by vendors, service companies and related firms that would conduct business with AMD. “Take a look at any place in the world that hosts this industry,” Lovell told the Times Union. “The payoff is literally decades of economic growth that comes from this.”
“The high-tech economy is real,” said Assemblyman Minority Leader Jim Tedisco. “Thousands of research, development and manufacturing jobs are being created and what that means is that many more of our young people will not be forced to make the painful decision to move out of state upon graduation. It means also that many skilled laborers and technicians who have been out of work or underemployed will be able to employ their skills in new industries.”
The plant will be built in an Empire Zone, a designation that could be worth as much as $500 million in tax breaks and other incentives for AMD. The company will also be eligible for a $150 million research and development grant to help develop new microprocessor technology.
AMD’s investment is the largest private investment by a company in New York State, surpassing the $2.5 billion IBM put into its 300 mm wafer fabrication plan in East Fishkill in 2000.
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