Syracuse, N.Y. -- The $10 billion expansion of a semiconductor research center in Albany could boost Micron Technology’s ability to manufacture faster computer chips in its planned complex in the town of ClThe centerpiece of the 50,000-square foot research center addition in Albany will be the most advanced chip-making machine in the world, one that will let semiconductor manufacturers experiment with new ways to cram more minute transistors onto the memory chips essential to modern technology. The Albany NanoTech Complex will be just the second location in the world to get the new machines, called High NA extreme ultraviolet lithography tools.
The EUV tool in Albany will be so advanced that Micron won’t even install similar machines right away in the manufacturing plant it plans to start building in Clay next year. The machines can cost $500 million each.
Instead, Micron and other companies will conduct research on the machine, testing methods to imprint increasingly intricate patterns onto the pizza-sized silicon wafers that form the raw material of computer memory chips. Those chips store memory temporarily in phones, cars and other electronics.
It will be a research project with uncertain results, said Scott DeBoer, Micron’s executive vice president of technology and products.
“We’ll evaluate it and see if it’s beneficial for memory development,” DeBoer said. “If it is, we’ll buy more of those tools eventually, and put them into into service in the Syracuse area.”
Albany NanoTech still has to erect a new building and install the machine. That could take three years.
In Clay, Micron plans to build four large fabrication plants, or fabs, over the next 20 years. Construction on the first fab is slated to begin in November 2024, with the fourth and final fab coming online in the mid 2040s. The $100 billion complex would represent the largest single private investment in New York state history and would be the biggest production facility for Micron, the world’s fifth-largest chip maker.
The Clay complex could employ 9,000 people and generate 40,000 spinoff jobs, Micron says.
New York state will put up $1 billion for the center, which will pay for the new machine and other expenses. Micron is chipping in at least $200 million, DeBoer said, and likely much more. Other companies that are part of the new center are IBM and semiconductor industry suppliers Applied Materials, based in the Silicon Valley; and Tokyo Electron, based in Japan. All three of those companies already do research at the existing nanotech center.
EUV machines are made by just one company: ASML, based in the Netherlands. ASML is shipping its first High NA EUV to Intel’s fabrication plant, or fab, in Oregon. The machine at Albany Nanotech will be just the second in the world, and the first at a public institution.
The EUV machines lay the initial pattern for chips onto the silica wafers. A chip may have 80 layers, and the EUVs are only needed for the first and most crucial layers. Less expensive machines take over for the remaining layers.
Micron has EUVs at its fabs in other countries, including Taiwan and Singapore. The Albany center also has an older EUV that it will continue to use for research.
The nanotech center, which specializes in semiconductor research and development, was one of the reasons Micron chose to build in Central New York, said Kevin Younis, a Syracuse native who helped land Micron as executive deputy commissioner of the state’s economic development agency.
“R&D is like the DNA of semiconductors,” Younis said. “It is as important an input as any infrastructure.”
Officials say the Albany center could also boost New York state’s chances to become the federal National Semiconductor Technology Center, which would be funded under the CHIPS and Science Act. That act could also provide billions of dollars to Micron for the Clay fabs.
“I had Albany in mind even before I wrote the (CHIPS) bill, and with this major investment, we are even closer to getting it done,” U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, the Senate majority leader, said in Albany on Monday. “The federal government will designate in the next few months the National Semiconductor Tech Center, and I’m betting that it is going to be Albany.”
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December 13, 2023 at 12:12AM
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