Industry News

RF Micro Devices Inc., based in Greensboro, plans to upgrade its clean-room manufacturing space. The two-year, $58-million project will also provide new semiconductor manufacturing equipment for its partner, Agere Systems Inc., in Orlando, Fl., to produce high-performance chips for communications products. RF Micro will also build a facility in Beijing to test and finish chips for the Chinese market.

DataCentersNow  has completed CyberFortress II, a 109,800-sf vault-like data center in Manassas. For companies requiring highly secure facilities to house their telecom and Web sites, CyberFortress II offers bullet-proof glass doors, thick walls, and independent power generation, as well as raised floors and large fiber-optic pipes.

Applied Micro Circuits Corp. (AMCC), based in San Diego, has plans for a three-building, 521,000-sf manufacturing facility in nearby Poway. The 31-acre site at South Poway Business Park will accommodate one 90,000-sf structure, one 120,000-sf structure, and one 311,000-sf structure. The initial phase of construction is expected to take two years. AMCC manufactures optical networking products.

Telecom giant WorldCom, based in Clinton, Miss., opened a new 110,000-sf data center in Billerica in October. The facility offers security, climate-control, and power-supply features, as well as on-site tech support, bandwidth options, performance reporting, and access to WorldCom's global Internet protocol network. WorldCom's long-term goal is to open approximately 70 data centers around the world that offer the company's hosting and Internet-services business.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is scouting cities in central Texas for 200 acres on which to locate a proposed 300 mm chip fabrication plant. Cities under consideration include Austin, San Marcos, Buda, and Round Rock.  Construction is scheduled to begin in 2004 at an estimated cost of $4 billion. Austin is home to AMD's existing 200mm fab.