At a luncheon sponsored by the Luther Forest Technology Campus, Advanced Micro Devices officials discussed every aspect of their prospective move to the Malta site except for oneare they actually coming?
While talking about their planning at the Tuesday, Jan. 23, City Center event in Saratoga Springs, AMD officials stopped short of committing to the Luther Forest site.
We expect the decision to be made some time this year, maybe sooner rather than later, but that’s to be determined,` said Terry Caudell, AMD’s director of wafer manufacturing strategies.
AMD spokesman Travis Bullard reiterated what Caudell said, but added the computer chip industry is very competitive and very volatile, but company officials are assuming the plant will go forward.
The microchip manufacturing plant is in the early stages of the design phase, he said, adding chip plant builder M+W Sander has been hired to do a detailed plant design starting in mid-February.
If the approval to move ahead with the Luther Forest plant comes, the most likely ground-breaking would be in 2008, Caudell said.
The plant, which is now conceptually known as `Fab 4X` (AMD names their plants for the number of years they were built after the establishment of the company in 1969), would not begin chip production until after 2010, Caudell said.
`From the time the first spade breaks soil to the time chip production begins would be about two, two-and-a-half years,` he told a group of nearly 700 people at the $30-a-plate luncheon.
Caudell later clarified what would actually take place at the Malta/Stillwater site, should it materialize. The fabrication plant wouldn’t actually produce microchips`those are made at plants in Asia`but would refine and process the silicon wafers that are used for the microprocessors. The plant would be 1.2 million square feet and use the state-of-the art 300 mm wafer technology, in which the circuits themselves are 32 nanometers ` 32 one-billionths of an inch. The technology produced at the plant, he said, would be a few years from the commercial market.
The $3.2 billion chip fab would receive $1.2 billion in state incentives under the agreement state officials and AMD announced in June and finalized in December. AMD, which has its headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif., but has chip fabs and offices in Austin, Texas; Dresden, Germany; and Malaysia, would receive $650 million in state grant money and $550 million in infrastructure and other incentives if it starts construction before July 2009. In fact, Caudell was unabashed in saying that state incentives were one of the top three reasons the chip fab giant was interested in Luther Forest.
`This is a very expensive business and certainly the benefits we were able to receive from the state were a factor in our decision,` he said.
In return for the aid, the company would guarantee creation of at least 1,200 jobs. Caudell said many of those jobs would require advanced degrees, and a large number of them, mostly the lab technician positions, would require at least the completion of a two-year program or course specifically designed for the field.
Ward Tisdale, AMD manager of community affairs, added that there would be clerical, human resources, and support jobs available as well, but those would be in small supply compared to the laboratory positions.
Caudell also listed New York’s existing infrastructure as a reason for locating the chip fab in Saratoga County, and commended the Saratoga County Board of Supervisors for the work they have done to put into action the construction of roads and other infrastructure the plant will need.
Work is supposed to start this year, but it remains unclear whether Saratoga County supervisors will fund plans to bring water to the site from the upper Hudson River. The plant will use more than 1 million gallons per day.
`Ultimately, water is the responsibility of the county, and we’re confident they will meet that responsibility,` Bullard said. He said AMD, which would be the system’s largest user, wouldn’t sign a water purchase contract until it makes the final decision on whether it is building the plant. The county water project has verbal agreements from some municipalities, but as yet has no signed contracts.
Wilton Supervisor Art Johnson, a member of the county Water Committee who attended the luncheon, said he believes the county will go forward with the $67 million water system.
`We’ll get it done. It’s too important not to,` he said.
Steve Groseclose, AMD’s environmental, health and safety director, said the company has a strong commitment to environmental stewardship. While he didn’t talk specifics, he said the company strives to maintain and exceed all government environmental guidelines. Outside, a handful of protesters disagreed.
On the sidewalk outside the City Center, about a half-dozen people protested the plans and state funding for them.
`I think the public has been sold a bill of goods that has no reality,` said William Engleman of Clifton Park. `There will be tremendous destruction of natural habitat, totally destroying a natural area.`
The Luther Forest campus site is now a 1,350-acre wooded area. It has been approved for up to four chip fabs.
`This is an inappropriate area for this kind of development. This will be a sprawl-inducing project,` said Barbara Trypaluk, chairwoman of the Saratoga County Green Party. She said Saratoga County doesn’t have the water for the chip fab, and it would be better suited for Albany or Troy.
When asked why she wasn’t inside, questioning AMD officials, Trypaluk said the cost kept her out.
`This luncheon should have been free,` she said. `At $30 a plate, they’re not going to meet regular members of the community, only politicians and businessmen.`
Later that day, AMD released quarterly and annual results that showed revenue increased 33 percent in 2006, to $5.2 billion. However, it sustained a net loss of $47 million for the year because of costs associated with its $5.4 billion acquisition in October of ATI Technologies, a graphics chip maker.
Analysts said Intel and AMD have been in a price war in recent months that hurt revenue. AMD is the No. 2 microprocessor manufacturer, a distant second to Intel Corp., but it has been gaining market share.
AMD has approximately 15,000 employees worldwide, according to Caudell.“