Another sad day for the semiconductor industry

[RandySmith]

With cheaper operational costs overseas, another supporting company closes it's doors to competition from across the big pond for the semiconductor industry. I witnessed the ground breaking of this building, and watched the growth of this company. This past week I helped moved one of the last few pieces of equipment out of the building. It'll be okay for me, because a lot of the equipment is coming to the DFW metroplex, so it helps with my personal job security (for now) ... but just hate to see the doors closing on another company. If integrated circuits followed suit with the oil companies, laptops, p.c.'s, digital cameras, and other entertainment devices, I suspect the price would probably be 10-times the cost they currently are.

[pepper52]

Randy - I have personally experienced the impact of closing one of the fabs in San Antonio and it wasn't a pleasant memory. I must compliment you on your second picture; lighting in a fab is not the easiest environment to take pictures. Have to say that I don't miss the bunny suits.

[Cope]

Which company?

[pepper52]

Philips Semiconductors. Sony closed their San Antonio fab around the same time frame. I enjoyed working for Philips and I wish they could have found a way to keep the fab open. I worked for VLSI Technology which was bought out by Philips. I hope the fab that was closed helped its employees like Philips. They went the extra mile to assist employees and to soften the impact as much as possible.

[Daniel Bates]

I attended a summer camp at CSU (Ft. Collins) last semester, working in their VLSI lab and learning about the semiconductor industry. We toured Agilent and their fab, which was quite interesting... they said that it's tremendously expensive to operate a fab, and future ones (with smaller and smaller processes) will most likely be off shore.

[RandySmith]

Thanks guys, I was just venting I suppose, not sure what the future might hold for all of us if all of our egg's are overseas ...

FYI the riggers were not "fully" dressed ... because of the shut-down, the gowning requirements were relaxed.

Randy

[Art Wright]

I worked as a semiconductor tech for five years (ST MIcroelectronics. TI and Intel) and I was layed off three times in that span. Let's just say I don't miss it (especially the bunny suits and Intel space helmets)...