Albany NanoTech complex expands, adds 600 jobs

The $150 million expansion will also support more than $1 billion in new investments and will see IBM extend its R&D partnership with the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering through 2013.

By Suzanne Deffree, Managing Editor, News -- Electronic News, 3/31/2009

Some 600 new high-tech jobs will come to New York State by 2013 through a $150 million expansion at the  College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) University at Albany NanoTech Complex.

The expansion will also support more than $1 billion in new investments and will see IBM extend its R&D partnership with CNSE through 2013. At that time, the company will have invested more than $1 billion in CNSE's Albany NanoTech Complex, according to a statement this week from the office of NY State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.

"The strategic partnership between New York State, CNSE, and IBM, developed and supported by our state government leaders, has helped make New York the world leader in nanotechnology," said John E Kelly III, IBM senior VP and director of research, in the statement. "The success of this alliance, both in driving regional economic development and in its powerful advancements in technological innovation, is why IBM is extending its participation through 2013." 

IBM has taken full advantage of its CNSE alliance. In February, IBM said it had jointly developed process modeling technology for manufacturing 22-nm logic and memory chips with CNSE and Applied Materials. IBM in August 2008 claimed that it and its partners including CNSE had developed the world’s first working 22-nm SRAM. And in April 2008, IBM boasted positive early results for a gate-stack advance that it and its partners said provided significant improvements in performance and power consumption at the 32-nm technology node through the CNSE.

With the $150 million expansion's additional buildings and labs, the UAlbany NanoCollege now covers more than 800,000-square feet, including 80,000-square feet of class 1 capable cleanroom space. The opening of the NanoFab East (NFE) office and laboratory building and NanoFab Central (NFC) cleanroom building at CNSE will add more than 350,000-square feet of office, laboratory, and class 1 cleanroom space to CNSE's Albany NanoTech, according to the statement.

The new buildings will host nanoelectronics R&D programs, business deployment, and commercialization outreach initiatives for a number of companies, including IBM, International SEMATECH, and Vistec Lithography.

The expansion is expected to allow employment at the UAlbany NanoCollege to grow to more than 2,800 scientists, researchers, engineers, faculty, and students by 2013.

The 250,000-square-foot NFE will serve as headquarters for International SEMATECH and as home to the Institute for Nanoelectronics Discovery and Exploration, a $505 million initiative that focuses on nanotechnology research for future generations of transistor technologies, according to the statement. NFC is a separate 100,000-square-foot building that includes 15,000-square feet of class 1 cleanroom space.

With the location of its headquarters at the UAlbany NanoCollege, International SEMATECH will create 450 new jobs, the statement said.

Vistec Lithography, a developer and manufacturer of advanced electron-beam tools, will invest $125 million and create 130 high-tech jobs in upstate New York over the next five years, the statement further said.