Industry News

Samsung Austin Semiconductor, a subsidiary of South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co., has announced a $50-million capital investment at its Austin direct random access memory (DRAM) chipmaking plant. The upgrade will convert chip production from 0.17 microns to 0.146 microns, as well as producing double data rate (DDR) DRAM chips. The Austin plant, where 950 are employed, was built in 1996 at a cost of $1.3 billion. Since then, an additional $100-million in upgrades have been carried out.

Clear Channel Worldwide is nearing completion of its 123,000-sf Corporate Service Center in Stone Oak, Texas. The three-story, $15-million project will house a data center, a network operations center, seven call centers, and administrative offices. Construction is slated for completion at the end of October 2002, with occupancy of the data center beginning as early as Sept. 15. Employees will occupy the rest of the facility in phases over the next few months. The center will employ 400 workers.

Veritas Software Corp. is developing Corporate Campus II, a $170-million project designed by architect Hellmuth Obata + Kassabaum. Located on a 990,990-sf site in Milpitas, Calif., the campus is being built by general contractor Rudolph & Sletten. Construction began in November 2000 and is slated for completion in May 2003.

Raytheon Co. is building a 150,000-sf headquarters in the Waltham Woods Corporate Center in Waltham. Raytheon will relocate the majority of its corporate staff from its former Lexington headquarters, with some staff relocated to the company's other Massachusetts facilities. Construction of the new facility is expected to reach completion in the fourth quarter of 2003.  

The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill is constructing the 123,000-sf School of Public Health. The $39-million project, designed by Anshen & Allen Architects, is slated for completion in May of 2005. Contractor for the project is TA Loving, with engineering services provided by Stewart Engineering Inc.