1/11/2013 9:32:55 AM
Times Union: New center fuels Fab 8.2 hope
Times Union
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ALBANY — GlobalFoundries' $2 billion investment in its new Technology Development Center adjacent to Fab 8 in Malta brings it closer to a $10 billion investment in a next-generation semiconductor plant, CEO Ajit Manocha said Thursday.
Manocha, speaking at an event at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering
at the University at Albany, said GlobalFoundries is "committed to New
York state," and that the company would move ahead with Fab 8.2, as he
called it, "when we are ready."
The Technology Development Center, officially announced Tuesday by the company and by Gov. Andrew Cuomo,
will be a "collaborative space to develop end-to-end technologies" for
the next generation of semiconductor manufacturing, said Gregg Bartlett, GlobalFoundries' senior vice president and chief technology officer, who also spoke at the event.
Manocha's
comments were the strongest indication yet that GlobalFoundries plans
to eventually build a second semiconductor fabrication plant at Luther
Forest Technology Campus in Malta.
GlobalFoundries is part of a
consortium of five major chip makers that is developing the technology
and manufacturing techniques needed to produce microprocessors on 450-mm
— approximately 18-inch — diameter silicon wafers. Currently, the
manufacturers use 300-mm, or 12-inch, wafers. That work is part of the
G450C consortium based at CNSE. It will soon take place at NanoFab
Xtension, or NFX, a building now nearing completion. Others in the
consortium include Intel, IBM, Samsung and TSMC.