IBM Corp. and six other semiconductor companies will invest $1.9 billion to construct a chip manufacturing plant in East Fishkill, N.Y. The plant will creat 750 jobs, in addition to 250 research-related positions. The partners in the consortium are reported to include Samsung, Sony Corp., Toshiba, Infineon Technologies, Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing, and Advanced Micro Devices.
Chip-equipment maker FormFactor opened its new $55-million headquarters and manufacturing facility in Livermore, Calif., in October of 2004. Doubling FormFactor’s previous footprint, the 135,000-sf building will increase probe card production and enable the company’s development of probe cards for different types of chips. Employees will be shifted to the new facility incrementally; an additional building housing a cafeteria and a gym is still in development at the site.
The University of New Mexico is engaged in constructing a new state-of-the-art cleanroom facility in its Manufacturing Training and Technology Center in Albuquerque. Partially funded by a $1.25-million grant from the Economic Development Administration, the cleanroom will enable student training in microfabrication. It will also serve as a shared use facility where local businesses can rent space.
San Jose-based Cisco Systems is planning to open a research and development center in Shanghai, China. Representing an initial investment of $32 million over the next five years, the facility will accommodate the hire of approximately 100 employees over the next 18 months. The center will open in the third quarter of 2005.
San Jose, Calif.-based Cypress Semiconductor Corp . is planning a $2-million expansion of its one-year-old semiconductor design facility in Hyderabad, India. Involving the addition of a silicon validation lab and equipment, the project will enable Cypress to add 33 engineering staff to its 17-person Hyderabad team by year-end 2005. The Hyderabad center currently designs network search engines.
Samsung Semiconductor LLP broke ground in late July 2004 on the second expansion phase of its Austin , Texas, chip manufacturing plant. The 34,000-sf, $500-million project will increase the plant’s capacity to produce nanoscale semiconductor memory technology. Completion is expected in three years.
Elcoteq Network Corp, the largest electronics manufacturing services provider in Europe , will initiate construction of a new $18.6-million plant in St. Petersburg , Russia, in the last quarter of 2004. The 14,700-sf facility will employ 1,500 workers when it becomes operational in fall 2005. Elcoteq’s U.S. headquarters is located in Irving , Texas .
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has completed the new Advanced Measurement Laboratory (AML ) in Gaithersburg , Md. The $235-million facility accommodates research in nanotechnology, semiconductors, biotechnology, advanced materials, quantum computing, and advanced manufacturing. Completed in December 2003 and officially opened in June 2004, the AML features five separate wings with stringent environmental controls on particulate matter, temperature, humidity, vibration and electromagnetic interferences. The design includes:
Electron microscope maker FEI Corp. has opened its enhanced Eindhoven , Netherlands, campus, featuring the “NanoPort," a state-of-the-art product and applications center. Providing space for collaborative R&D projects, such as the European Union’s Interaction Proteome Project, the NanoPort accommodates scientists working in the disciplines of biotechnology, materials science, structural biology, proteomics, pathology, and semiconductors and data storage. The facility houses a range of transmission and scanning electron microscopes, as well as ion beam and dual-beam systems.
Hitachi Global Storage Technologies is planning to construct a $500-million manufacturing center in Shenzhen , China. Construction on the plant is slated to begin in late 2004. Production of 3.5” disk drives will begin at the new facility in the fourth quarter of 2005.
Palo Alto, Calif.-based Agilent Technologies has awarded a facilities management contract for all of its properties to Glendale-based Johnson Controls. The five-year contract includes mechanical, electrical, plumbing, operations and maintenance, project management, building fabric maintenance and general services for Agilent’s 17 million sf of owned and leased properties in thirty countries. Agilent manufactures scientific and analysis equipment.
Kobe Minolta Holdings , a Japanese technology company, is planning to construct a $73-million plant in Kobe, Japan. The facility will manufacture liquid crystal display film, boosting capacity by half to 90 million square meters annually. Construction will begin in June 2004, with the factory becoming operational in fall of that year.
Santa Clara-based Intel is engaged in a $2-billion conversion of Fab 12, its Chandler, Ariz., plant, from the production of 200mm wafers to 300mm wafers. Slated for completion in late 2005, the project includes the modification of the interior of the cleanroom to house the increased size of the 300mm production equipment. As the first entire conversion of an existing 200mm fab to a 300mm fab, the project provides space to double capacity. The larger wafers require 40 percent less energy and water for each chip produced, diminishing the overall use of resources.
Plexus Corp. has purchased a 164,000-sf factory in Penang, Malaysia as part of a $12 million project to expand its operations there. The plant will nearly double Plexus’s current Asian manufacturing capacity, which it expects to outgrow by early fiscal 2005. Plexus, based in Neenah, Wisc., is a contract manufacturer of electronics.
M+W Zander U.S. Operations is completing the $3.5-million office and cleanroom construction training center in 60,000 sf of Building 44 at the Watervliet Arsenal in Watervliet, N.Y. A joint venture of Albany NanoTech, Arsenal Business and Technology Partnership, and M+W Zander, the center will train members of the Pipe Fitters Union, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and sheet metal workers to construct and maintain cleanroom facilities and install precision machinery.
