Microchip Technology’s Gresham factory, known as Fab 4, employs 864.
Editor
Microchip Technology’s Gresham factory, known as Fab 4, employs 864.
Oregon civic leaders say the new factory Microchip Technology is contemplating for its Gresham site could be a $3 billion investment employing 650.
“The expansion will make an extraordinary difference in Gresham, East Multnomah County, in Oregon, and in national chip production,” the leaders wrote in a letter to Gov. Kate Brown that The Oregonian obtained. “We want to see Oregon workers help fix our global supply chain issues.”
Four state lawmakers signed the letter sent Monday, joined by Gresham Mayor Travis Stovall and Mt. Hood Community College President Lisa Skari. They urged the governor to act by Nov. 1 to allocate $17.5 million from three state funds in support of Oregon’s bid.
“Ensuring that Microchip’s expansion is in Oregon protects and grows the semiconductor ecosystem, provides opportunity to Oregonians, and creates pathways to community prosperity in Gresham and East Multnomah County,” they wrote.
Winning the new factory would be a tremendous boost for Oregon’s efforts to revitalize its chip sector. If the company chooses to build elsewhere, the setback would invite fresh questions about the industry’s long-term future in the state.
Neither the governor’s office nor Microchip immediately responded to requests for comment Tuesday. Gresham is Microchip’s largest site; it’s not clear where else the company might build or what considerations will factor into its decision.
In Monday’s letter to the governor, the lawmakers and Gresham leaders urged Brown to draw $10 million from the state’s new workforce training program and another $7.5 million from two economic development funds. They didn’t specify how that money would be used, describing the allocations as “concrete steps to compete for the Microchip expansion.”
“While Oregon may not be able to compete dollar for dollar with more resourced states, we are convinced that Oregon is and should remain the best location for semiconductor manufacturing and this significant Microchip expansion,” they wrote.
The Oregonian reported last week that Arizona-based Microchip was contemplating a second factory at its 140-acre Gresham property, roughly half of which is undeveloped. Monday’s letter describes the project as 900,000 square feet with an estimated capital investment of $3 billion.
Microchip paid $184 million for the factory 20 years ago, acquired after prior owner Fujitsu Microelectronics shut it down. It has expanded considerably over the past two years amid soaring demand for Microchip’s products, which play essential supporting roles in airplanes, autos, medical equipment, networking gear and a variety of consumer electronics.
Over the past two years, Microchip says it has added 250 jobs in Gresham as employment has grown to 864. It said last week it plans to hire 300 more over the next two years, separate from the proposed new factory.
Microchip has other manufacturing sites around the country and around the world, including in Colorado, the Philippines, Thailand, Pennsylvania and Germany. Like other chipmakers, the Arizona company is positioning itself to capitalize on $280 billion in federal funding for domestic semiconductor manufacturing that Congress authorized last summer.
Oregon wants a share of that money, too. The state has one of the densest concentrations of chip manufacturing in the nation and semiconductors account for nearly half the state’s exports. Aside from Intel, though, no company has built a new chip factory in Oregon since the 1990s.
State lawmakers have been meeting over the past week to consider legislation to attract the chip industry in the upcoming session, building on the report a task force of government and business leaders issued in August. The governor is preparing a package of proposals she hopes lawmakers will consider on “day one” of the new session.
“The desire is to be the semiconductor epicenter, globally,” Skari, Mt. Hood’s president, said in an interview Tuesday.
A member of the chips task force and co-chair of its workforce development committee, Skari sent a separate letter to Brown on Monday underscoring the benefits more semiconductor jobs would have for communities in the “diverse and economically fragile” areas the college serves around Gresham.
Mt. Hood already has an engineering technology program, and Skari said the college is working with Microchip and another Gresham chipmaker, Onsemi, to explore whether it can adapt its automotive and manufacturing programs to prepare students for the chip industry. And she said the college is also working to make the chip industry accessible to students enrolled in Mt. Hood’s programs for people learning English.
“That’s one space where we see lots of opportunity,” Skari said.
Mt. Hood and other community colleges in the Portland area are working collaboratively as they design their own strategy for semiconductor industry education, according to Skari. She said they expect to seek a share of the $200 million in workforce training funds that lawmakers approved last winter.
“There’s more than enough need to go around,” Skari said. “We can be more effective if we’re being thoughtful and intentional.”
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