Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York on Monday announced a plan to invest $1 billion to expand chip research activities in Albany, New York, as the state seeks to continue as a global semiconductor hub.
The plan is expected to create 700 new permanent jobs and retain thousands more, and includes the purchase of a new version of one of the world's most expensive and sophisticated manufacturing machines, along with the construction of a new building to house it.
At an event in Albany, Governor Hochul positioned the investment as a national priority. “The Chinese are trying to dominate this industry,” he said. “We have no intention of allowing that to happen. “
The initiative should attract $9 billion in additional investment from chip-related companies, according to state officials. They hope it will increase New York's chances of being selected to host a new National Semiconductor technology Center, a planned centerpiece of the portion of federal research money that Congress appropriated in 2022 as part of the CHIPS Act.
“We hope this level of investment will attract more US CHIPS Act investment to make it even bigger,” said Mukesh Khare, IBM vice president and general manager of its semiconductor operations.
In addition to IBM, which has long been researching chips in Albany, companies involved in the project include Micron technology, Applied Materials and Tokyo Electron.
The focus of the effort is the Albany Nanotech Complex, a group of research buildings owned and operated by a state-affiliated nonprofit called NY CREATES. The state plans to spend about $500 million to build a new 50,000-square-foot clean room building.
A different building is needed to accommodate the next big breakthrough in a technology called lithography, which projects circuit patterns onto silicon wafers to make chips. Advances in such equipment are needed to create smaller transistors and other circuits to increase the power of computers and other devices.
The most sophisticated chips are currently made using a technology called extreme ultraviolet lithography, or EUV. Dutch company ASML is the dominant supplier of the machines, whose authorities in the United States and the Netherlands have prevented them from being sold to China as part of an effort to limit that country's progress in chip manufacturing.
Albany Nanotech owns prototype EUV tools and currently operates a commercial version. Under the new plan, New York will invest $500 million to purchase a next-generation EUV system, known as “High NA,” for numerical aperture, which will allow the center to develop much more advanced chips.
In addition to permanent research jobs, state officials estimated that the Albany project would generate between 500 and 600 temporary construction jobs in about two years.
Albany NanoTech will not be the first to use the High NA tool. Intel has ordered the first system from ASML, which is expected to begin installing it in early 2024. A comparable machine is expected to arrive in Albany in late 2025, Khare said.
The effort is unusual in several ways, including the fact that the new machine will be owned by the state and operated as a public resource to help the broader U.S. semiconductor industry, he added.
The northeastern states of the United States appear poised to play a major role in the evolution of the chip industry. U.S. Commerce Department officials also said Monday that BAE Systems in New Hampshire will receive the first grant under the manufacturing portion of the CHIPS Act.
Micron, a Boise, Idaho, company that is the only U.S. maker of chips used to store data, has also said it will spend up to $100 billion over a decade or more to develop a new manufacturing site near Syracuse, N.Y. York.
