Sematech Said to Pick Texas Over San Jose
In another setback to California’s efforts to lure important new research facilities, the consortium Sematech reportedly has chosen Austin, Tex., for the site of its principal manufacturing and development center.
The consortium’s board of directors made the site selection at a meeting in Dallas on Tuesday night, according to the Associated Press. Sematech spokesmen could not be reached for comment.
The finalists for the Sematech facility included California and 11 other states, among them Arizona, New Mexico, North Carolina, Massachusetts and New York. In a last-minute effort to woo the 13-member board on Tuesday, Gov. George Deukmejian had offered $125 million in state funding to the consortium if it located in San Jose.
State officials had been anxious to have the project, not only because of the 800 jobs that will be created but also because Sematech will have an annual operating budget of $250 million.
Lost Super Collider
“It is unfortunate we seem to be losing high-tech kind of industries, especially after the super collider,” a spokesman for House Speaker Willie Brown said.
Last month California lost a bid to be considered as a site for the super collider, a $4.4-billion federal atom-smasher project.
The state also lost a competition for a supercomputer design center, known as Microelectronics & Computer Technology Corp. or MCC, that also ultimately went to Austin. California also was nosed out in the selection of a site for an earthquake research laboratory set up at the State University of New York at Buffalo.
Sematech is a consortium of semiconductor manufacturers organized last March to improve manufacturing techniques for semiconductors, which are the heart of computers, electronic consumer products and contemporary military weapons systems. Sematech’s stated goal is to achieve world leadership in semiconductor manufacturing by 1993.
