Gathering the workers to fuel nano wave
Tom Phillips, who spent 30 years with IBM and has devoted the past 13 years to the Hudson Valley Technology Development Center in Fishkill, is more than well-acquainted with chip fabrication and the semiconductor industry.
He”™s also aware of many IBM and NXP colleagues who have lost jobs (NXP closed its Fishkill chip fabrication plant in 2009) or had jobs outsourced or downsized. Most have deep roots ”“ home, family, friends and community ties ”“ here in the Hudson Valley. “They want to remain in their industry,” said Phillips, “but they don”™t want to leave the region to do it.”
To help bridge the gap, Phillips, the center”™s director, gathered a group of skilled professionals and created Engineering Consulting Services, comprised of highly experienced engineers who offer their expertise and talent to smaller companies in the Hudson Valley ”“ from help designing chips for their products to working with them on quality issues. The consulting service was rolled out in January 2010.
It is now branching out to surrounding counties and looking north to the burgeoning nanotech industry in the Capital District. Phillips recently journeyed with a group of HVTDC consultants to introduce them to Global Foundries in Saratoga County, not far from Albany”™s nanotech epicenter.
Global Foundries is building a $4.2 billion, 300-mm chip fabrication facility at Luther Forest Technology Campus. The plant expects to be fully operational by 2012. It is expected to be the largest chip fabrication plant in the world when completed.
Luther Forest is an initiative started during the Gov. George Pataki administration to grow the nanotech industry in New York and to further complement the work going on in Albany”™s nanotech”™s center, also home of the University of Albany”™s Nanotech College. Global Foundries will be Luther Forest”™s first tenant.
While Luther Forest is physically conducive to the highly sensitive nature of chip fabrication, the technology campus needs the intellectual property capable of working on its products ”“ something the Hudson Valley offers.
That”™s where HVTDCÂ consultants and Global Foundries”™ needs meet, said Phillips. “This is a positive outcome for both our labor force and for Global, as well as other companies in the Albany nanotech cluster ”“ to be introduced to each other and to work together.
“If we don”™t do something to help this group of seasoned professionals, we are going to lose them,” said Phillips. Now chip fabricators, semiconductor companies and other high-tech industries in the north are being introduced to the Hudson Valley”™s wealth of intellectual talent.
Phillips says looking to northern neighbors to create jobs for the mid-Hudson”™s highly-skilled work force and for those in the Albany region to identify the valley as a source of skilled labor can only bring positive benefits to both.
Albany using the talent pool in the mid-Hudson is not going to boom overnight, but “HVTDCÂ is taking the steps to make it grow. We are working with our neighbors. It takes time, but we”™re starting to make inroads; that is a win for everyone,” said Phillips.
Phillips said the world is changing, and the Hudson Valley needs to think of itself as a region working with other regions of the state. “The Capital District is ”˜local”™ when it comes to doing business in New York,” said Phillips. “Yes, I”™d love to see this trickle down to us. But it”™s one step at a time, and by working as a region with another region of the state, that is thinking ”˜local”™ in this industry.”