Biden visit latest sign of NY's burgeoning semiconductor industry

The pieces of New York's semiconductor puzzle are coming together.

One piece was laid when GlobalFoundries opened its fabrication facility in Malta, in Saratoga County.

Wolfspeed in Marcy provided another with its silicon carbide fab opening in April of this year, bringing the promise of more than 600 jobs to the Mohawk Valley.

Earlier this month, however, the proverbial white whale was landed. A pledge from Micron Technology to invest up to $100 billion over 20 years to build a massive semiconductor fab just outside of Syracuse, in Clay.

The Micron deal didn’t just reverberate on the state and local level. It landed a visit from President Joe Biden on Thursday, who was eager to tout the success of the deal as a victory for congressional Democrats and his administration with midterm elections looming.

Biden: Semiconductor manufacturing 'a game changer' for U.S.

The signage in the gymnasium at the SRC Arena on the Onondaga Community College campus leading up to Biden’s arrival had one message, repeated: "A Future Made in America."

In his remarks, Biden discussed jobs leaving upstate New York, a place he spent time at as a law student at Syracuse University, as companies moved manufacturing overseas. He praised the CHIPS and Science Act, penned by Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and passed with bipartisan support, as a factor in bringing semiconductor manufacturing jobs back to America.

More:Biden in Syracuse praises Micron deal, sees bright future for NY. What he said.

More:Micron investing $100B in Central NY semiconductor hub. How many jobs will it bring?

The $280 billion legislation includes $39 billion in manufacturing incentives along with $24 billion in tax credits. How much Micron will receive from those funding pools is not yet known.

Biden mentioned the benefits of a domestic — and in-state — supply chain by connecting Micron to another recent investment in New York. The president stopped at IBM in Poughkeepsie earlier this month, where $20 billion will be invested in research and development, semiconductor manufacturing, mainframe technology, artificial intelligence and quantum computing.

“Think about it this way: IBM needs these chips to build the fastest quantum computers ever built in the world in Poughkeepsie, New York,” Biden said. “Instead of relying on chips made overseas that could be delayed because of a pandemic or some other global supply chain issue, they can get their chips in a few hours — in a few hours. It’s a game changer.”

NY capitalizing on chips boom

Gov. Kathy Hochul, facing a stiff challenge from Rep. Lee Zeldin in the upcoming election, attended the president’s visit and shared her experiences growing up near Buffalo as New York lost manufacturing jobs and saw young people leave for opportunities in other states.

Micron could receive as much as $5.5 billion in Green Chips Excelsior tax credits if it meets its $100 billion investment goal.

The state Legislature passed the Green Chips legislation on the heels of its federal counterpart to offer additional incentives for semiconductor manufacturing in New York. Projects eligible for the funds will need to invest at least $3 billion and create 500 jobs over a 10-year period.

“This is not just Chips Corridor,” Hochul said. “This is Chips Country. This is New York state and we're going to build it here in New York, and I'm so excited to be able to … turn the page on history that was dark and hard for many of us for so long.”

Why Micron chose Syracuse

The standing-room-only crowd listening to Biden’s speech on Thursday clearly had another favorite.

Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra was greeted by a standing ovation before he spoke and mentions of the company, which produces chips for memory applications, were greeted with applause throughout the day.

The event to celebrate Micron’s plant in Clay wouldn’t have happened without the passage of the CHIPS and Science Act, Mehrotra said, thanking Biden for his effort to pass the legislation.

“You championed this so hard,” he said. “Not just for national security, not just for economic security, but for the needs of the communities. For the workers who will make the world’s most advanced memory chips.”

Clay will be home to some of the most advanced manufacturing in the world, Mehrotra said. Micron expects to create as many as 9,000 jobs over the next two decades. An additional 40,000 jobs in labor, suppliers, contractors and other supporting roles are expected, too.

The chips produced by the Boise, Idaho-based company are found in numerous computing applications, such as speech-to-text in smartphones, advanced safety features in cars and medical imaging systems.

“All of these applications, and myriads more, depend on fast, accurate data,” Mehrotra said. “And because memory makes access to data easy, it is in a part of all of these technology applications today.”

The market for memory is expected to grow to $300 billion by the end of the decade and the growing demand means new fabs need to be built, Mehrotra said.

“But not long ago, an investment of the scale we have talked about today in the United States was not obvious at all,” he said. “In fact, it was not even realistic.”

Foreign countries have incentivized semiconductor manufacturing overseas, Mehrotra said. Without similar investment and public-private partnerships, the cost to build in the U.S. was as much as 45% higher.

“Now, the CHIPS Act has made the U.S., and New York specifically, a hub for leading-edge semiconductor manufacturing,” he said. “This bill, and what we’re achieving today because of it, is reviving the belief that America can be a manufacturing leader.”

This article originally appeared on Observer-Dispatch: Biden's Syracuse visit latest sign of NY's growing chip industry