Western Digital Plans Chip Plant in Irvine by 1989 : 425 Workers Will Transfer to $70-Million Facility

Western Digital, one of the county’s fastest-growing technology companies, plans to build a $70-million computer chip manufacturing plant in Irvine by September, 1989.

When the plant is completed, Western Digital will transfer 425 employees from its Costa Mesa chip-making plant to the new facility. The Costa Mesa plant will operate until sometime in 1990, Western Digital officials said.

The move is not expected to increase the company’s local work force, said Mike Pollack, a company spokesman.

Western Digital will locate the 150,000-square-foot plant on 12 acres in the Irvine Co.’s Spectrum development. The factory will be roughly a mile from where Western Digital plans to relocate its corporate headquarters by mid-1990.

In January, Western Digital revealed plans to move its corporate offices from 2445 McCabe Way in Irvine to a 15-story building that it will lease from the Irvine Co. Western Digital will consolidate about 1,000 employees working in eight buildings in the county.

Pollack said the firm decided to build the new plant in Irvine to further consolidate design and manufacturing operations.

Western Digital, the county’s largest technology company, with revenues of $462.5 million last year, manufactures computer chips, circuit boards and other computer products.

Chips Made at New Plant

Prototype and custom chips for Western Digital’s own use and for its customers, such as computer manufacturers, will be made at the new plant. Chips, or semiconductors, are tiny electric circuits that are the building blocks of computers and other modern electronic devices.

A key purpose of the plant is to produce high-quality but less expensive chips that will enhance Western Digital’s competitiveness in the international market.

John MacKay, senior vice president of manufacturing, said the Costa Mesa site is not large enough to accommodate the physical facilities and machinery needed to produce the kind of advanced chips that will be made in Irvine.

Specifically, the Irvine plant will produce chips using an advanced technology known as complementary-metal-oxide-silicon. CMOS uses less electricity and less heat than other techniques, allowing a designer to pack electronic circuits closer together.

The plant initially will manufacture so-called 1.25-micron chips, a designation that refers to the amount of space that separates circuitry on the chips. One micron is the equivalent of 39-millionths of an inch.

Eventually, the plant could produce chips that would be even more densely packed, Pollack said.

MacKay described the chip plant “the most advanced facility of its kind in Southern California and, we think, one of the most advanced in the United States.”

One of the features of the plant will be a 30,000-square-foot “anti-vibration area,” designed to shield the factory from ground motion caused by trucks or other vehicles. Even slight ground motion can cause a misalignment in the layered circuitry of advanced chips, MacKay said.

Using a golf analogy, MacKay described the manufacturing accuracy required in making such chips as “the equivalent of hitting a hole in one 100% of the time from 18 miles away.”

Construction Date

The plant will be near the intersection of Alton Parkway and Barranca Road. Construction is scheduled to begin in June or July.

In designing the plant, Western Digital hopes to benefit from expertise it has gained through a technology-sharing alliance with AT&T;, the New Jersey-based communications giant.

As part of an agreement announced in September, AT&T; has been producing advanced chips for Western Digital at an AT&T; plant in Orlando, Fla. Under the pact, AT&T; is to produce at least $50 million in chips annually for the Irvine firm.

Pollack said AT&T; will continue to produce chips for Western Digital after the county plant is completed. Western Digital, in turn, expects to make custom chips for AT&T; at its new plant.

Unlike AT&T;’s Orlando plant, the Irvine facility will not be designed to produce chips in mass quantities, he said.