10/18/2012 9:25:59 AM

Times Union: $7B bet on next chip

Times Union

ALBANY — The stars continue to align for efforts by New York state to become the epicenter for the next-generation of computer chip manufacturing.

A majority of the members of the Global 450 Consortium, an Albany-based semiconductor research and development group unveiled by Gov. Andrew Cuomo a year ago, have taken large equity stakes in ASML, one of the world's most important makers of computer chip manufacturing equipment.

Both the creation G450C — and nearly $7 billion in commitments to ASML by three of its members, Intel, Samsung and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. — are part of an inevitable move by the chip industry to shift production to factories that make chips out of larger silicon wafers, drastically reducing costs.

Today's chip fabrication facilities — or "fabs" — process 12-inch, or 300 millimeter, silicon wafers. The GlobalFoundries fab in Malta, considered the most advanced in the world, is a 300mm facility.

But in an effort to keep reducing costs — fueling the extraordinary growth that allows it to keep investing in new innovations such as mobile computing — the industry wants to move to using 18-inch, or 450mm wafers.

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