Wolfspeed starts production expansion at Marcy chip-fab

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MARCY, N.Y. — Setting its sights on a game-changer facility and promised state and federal investments in the semiconductor industry, Wolfspeed (NYSE: WOLF) is forging full-steam ahead at its Mohawk Valley Fab. The 500,000-square-foot facility, which opened just about a year ago as the world’s first 200 mm silicon-carbide fabrication facility, remains ahead of schedule […]

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The 500,000-square-foot facility, which opened just about a year ago as the world’s first 200 mm silicon-carbide fabrication facility, remains ahead of schedule on hiring employees, landing work, and, now, building out the rest of its clean-room facilities, according to company CFO Neill Reynolds.

Reynolds recently sat down with the Central New York Business Journal to discuss the North Carolina company’s investment in the Mohawk Valley.

“Building this factory in upstate New York is a game changer for us,” he says. It is a key move for Wolfspeed as it works to transition from a small company into something bigger. The area, he says, was a really good match for what Wolfspeed, then called Cree, was seeking.

Things are working out fantastically so far, with the area living up to its promise, Reynolds says. “The university network here in upstate New York has been great.” Area officials and residents have been welcoming.

To date, Wolfspeed has hired more than 350 people to work at the facility — nearly 100 more than it had a year ago and way ahead of its original hiring schedule where it predicted it would reach 270 employees by early 2023.

“We’re still hiring,” Reynolds says. The company expects to employ about 600 people at full capacity, which it originally projected to reach in 2029.

That timeline has now moved up significantly as the company lands contract after contract for its silicon-carbide semiconductors. Lucid Motors, Jaguar Land Rover, and Mercedes-Benz are just a few of the companies that have signed on to install Wolfspeed semiconductors in their electric vehicles (EV).

The contracts, called design ins, take about three to five years before any product is even produced, Reynolds notes. That is due to all quality and integration work that must take place before production can begin. Wolfspeed has generated more than $15 billion in design ins over the past few years, with much of that work destined for the Mohawk Valley Fab.

The demand is strong in both the short term and long term, Reynolds says, which led Wolfspeed to speed up its timeline to finish building out its clean-room fabrication space in Marcy. “Building out capacity is really important,” he says. The company partitioned out the 125,000-square-foot clean room when it originally built the facility so that it could complete the build out in stages.

Rather than 2029, that build out will now happen as quickly as possible while still done in a methodical fashion, he says. Wolfspeed will bring in new equipment, adding lines one at a time to allow for testing, to the tune of about $2 billion. The company will receive a $500 million reimbursement from the state for its investment.

Adding the equipment takes time because the facility is fully automated and most automation equipment is sized for 150 mm semiconductors. So, there is a process to resize things as well as go through all the proper learning cycles to make sure everything operates at peak efficiency.

That efficiency, and the 70 percent larger surface area of the 200 mm wafers, is part of what is driving demand for Wolfspeed’s semiconductors. Bigger wafers mean more chips per wafer, and that increased volume helps drive down the cost. That lower cost, combined with the faster charging time and longer range of silicon-carbide chips, has helped demand skyrocket for the company.

Reynolds now expects the Marcy facility will be fully built out and reach its full capacity by 2027. At full capacity, the Mohawk Valley Fab can produce about $2 billion worth of product in an anticipated $20 billion market.

Wolfspeed is also building a new materials manufacturing facility in Durham, North Carolina, which will build the 200 mm wafers the Fab will convert into chips, and recently announced plans to build a new fabrication facility in Saarland, Germany. That facility will allow the company to better serve its global customers, Reynolds says.

While the new facility in Europe will also be a 200 mm facility, the Mohawk Valley Fab will always be the first and the facility that helped put Wolfspeed on the map.

“This factory is very much at the forefront of the industry,” Reynolds contends.

Wolfspeed’s semiconductors, power-switching devices and RF devices are used in the electric vehicle, fast charging, 5G, renewable energy and storage, and aerospace and defense industries.

Students no longer need to get a COVID vaccine to attend a SUNY school

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RMS promotes Fiorenza to director of research analytics

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BALDWINSVILLE — Research & Marketing Strategies, Inc. (RMS) announced that it has promoted Patrick Fiorenza to director of research analytics. Since joining RMS in early 2022, Fiorenza has established a comprehensive analytics department to address the company’s market-research analytics needs and developed an extensive team of resources through both internal staff and contracted professionals, the

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WISE Women’s Business Center to use $100K SU grant to help women entrepreneurs

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SYRACUSE — The WISE Women’s Business Center (WBC) will use a $100,000 special-impact grant from Syracuse University to help area women entrepreneurs. The funding will allow WISE WBC to provide expert technical assistance to more than 250 women entrepreneurs in Central New York through its no-cost, small-business counseling program. Syracuse University sees the grant as

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SYRACUSE — The WISE Women’s Business Center (WBC) will use a $100,000 special-impact grant from Syracuse University to help area women entrepreneurs.

The funding will allow WISE WBC to provide expert technical assistance to more than 250 women entrepreneurs in Central New York through its no-cost, small-business counseling program.

Syracuse University sees the grant as “investing in the success of women small-business owners,” per the April 2 announcement. WISE is short for Women Igniting the Spirit of Entrepreneurship.

As one of nearly 150 women business centers across the nation, WISE is funded in part by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) and hosted by the Martin J. Whitman School of Management.

The WISE Women’s Business Center is located in the lobby of the Equitable Towers at 100 Madison St. in downtown Syracuse.

Designated by the SBA as a Women’s Business Center in 2006, WISE has helped thousands of women reach their small-business goals, Syracuse University contended.

In 2022 alone, WISE supported more than 600 women with no-cost programs and services. They included over 1,000 hours of no-cost technical assistance in areas that included business planning and financial projections as well as creating a plan for strategic growth.

Minority women accounted for more than 40 percent of those served, Syracuse University noted.

The “unprecedented impacts of the pandemic continue to take their toll on the economy and our community,” Syracuse contends. The challenges women business owners face “often require a unique approach,” the school added. The special funding will allow WISE to support women with the technical assistance they need when they need it and “position the counseling program for the future.”

The work will include hiring a Spanish-speaking small-business counselor.

“The demand for expert technical assistance has risen significantly. We’re incredibly grateful to Syracuse University for recognizing the importance of equitable access to trusted small business resources,” Meghan Florkowski, director of the WISE WBC, said in a statement. “We take our role in the community seriously and will do all we can to stand behind and beside CNY women as partners in their success.”

Mike Haynie, vice chancellor for strategic initiatives and innovation at Syracuse University and a professor of entrepreneurship, added, “Over the past decade, women have represented one of the fastest growing segments of the community business owners across the U.S. Here in Central New York, the WISE Women’s Business Center has fueled that growth locally and empowered countless women in pursuit of their business ownership aspirations. For that reason, Syracuse University is proud to support and advance the work of the WISE Women’s Business Center,”

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All CNY regions post modest job gains in the last year

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The Syracuse, Utica–Rome, Watertown–Fort Drum, Binghamton, Ithaca, and Elmira regions all gained jobs between February 2022 and this past February. The Central New York subregions produced job growth ranging from 0.6 percent in both the Elmira and Ithaca areas to 2.4 percent in the Syracuse region during the 12-month period. That’s according to the latest

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Daldrop SBB building new manufacturing plant in Schroeppel

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SCHROEPPEL, N.Y. — Daldrop SBB announced it is building a new manufacturing facility at the L. Michael Treadwell Oswego County Industrial Park (OCIP) in Schroeppel. Daldrop SBB is a German company with operations in both Salina and DeWitt. The firm plans to consolidate the Salina and DeWitt locations into the new Oswego County site once

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College consortium to train workers for Micron, semiconductor industry

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SYRACUSE, N.Y. — An official with Micron Technology calls the Northeast University Semiconductor Network “an amazing opportunity to create generational change.” Manish Bhatia, executive VP of global operations at Micron Technology, called the group “…a transformational shift in how universities and industry partner together, not just over five years, but over 10 years, 20 years,

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SYRACUSE, N.Y. — An official with Micron Technology calls the Northeast University Semiconductor Network “an amazing opportunity to create generational change.”

Manish Bhatia, executive VP of global operations at Micron Technology, called the group “…a transformational shift in how universities and industry partner together, not just over five years, but over 10 years, 20 years, and the decades beyond that. This will help drive fundamental change in emerging research that’s needed for semiconductor development.”

He contends the network will “help us to be able to train the engineers to operate our semiconductor manufacturing fabs that are at the very leading edge of smart manufacturing, and to train and upskill and reskill the technicians of the future who operate and maintain the equipment and facilities in these networks.”

In his remarks, Bhatia also thanked the many university officials who gathered at Syracuse University’s National Veterans Resource Center for the April 10 announcement about the partnership.

More than 20 universities are involved in an effort to form a training pipeline to build the future of the semiconductor industry in Central New York.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D–N.Y.); Micron Technology (NASDAQ: MU); and the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced the network.

Besides Schumer, speakers at the event included NSF director Sethuraman Panchanathan. The senator had invited Panchanathan to meet with local stakeholders, the Democrat’s office said in an April 10 news release.

The schools involved include the entire SUNY and CUNY systems; Syracuse University; Cornell University; Clarkson University; New York University; Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Rochester Institute of Technology; Barnard College in New York City; and other renowned programs at institutions like Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, per Schumer’s office.

“There’s a lot of work ahead for all of us, but if that work is supported by all of us cooperating, it’s going to benefit everybody in New York and in the region,” Syracuse University Chancellor Kent Syverud said in his remarks to open the event. “I’m proud of this university’s role in that work but proud also that our role is subordinate to us all working together for the success of Micron.”

Institutions in the Northeast University Semiconductor Network will collaborate with Micron and the NSF to “modernize” curriculum; create greater access to cleanroom and teaching labs; and “bolster” both public research and research opportunities for students, Schumer’s office said.

“Today is the start of us building the workforce of the future, a group of all ages, all backgrounds, from across New York State that is going to bring manufacturing back to upstate New York and to America,” Schumer said in his remarks inside Syracuse University’s National Veterans Resource Center.

The schools involved have “strong” undergraduate and graduate programs in engineering and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) to train the workers. The partnership is spurred by the CHIPS and Science Act, Schumer noted.

Boise, Idaho–based Micron Technology plans to invest up to $100 billion over the next 20-plus years on a semiconductor manufacturing campus at the White Pine Commerce Park in the town of Clay. Schumer called that announcement back on Oct. 4, 2022 “step one.”

“But step two is to train workers, thousands and thousands of workers in good paying jobs to work at this huge chip fab,” Schumer said. “Without the workers, it can’t succeed.”

“It’s about people, people, people because people are the ones that have the ideas. People are the ones that innovate. And people are the ones that create the impact,” NSF’s Panchanathan said in his remarks.

The program is a direct result of the expansion of the NSF to include a new Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships Directorate, a Schumer-authored provision included in his original Endless Frontier Act that because the CHIPS and Science Act that passed into law and builds on the $10 million announced earlier this year for Micron and the NSF to boost semiconductor curricula in colleges and universities across the country.

Schumer explained that his CHIPS and Science Act authorizes billions in new investment for the NSF’s STEM workforce training and education programs, and the senator wants those federal dollars to be used to “prepare the next generation of workers for the thousands of good-paying construction, manufacturing, and innovation jobs on the horizon,” his office said.

Sethuraman Panchanathan, director of the National Science Foundation (NSF), on April 10 addressed the gathering at Syracuse University’s National Veterans Resource Center.

Cryomech moves forward under Bluefors ownership with local jobs to fill

Employee Benefits & Human Resources, Manufacturing & Engineering, Small Business, Subscriber Only, Technology

DeWITT, N.Y. — As Cryomech begins operations under a new owner, the local firm’s president tells CNYBJ it has job openings to fill and they’re listed at the Cryomech website. The positions include assembly technician, CNC machine operator, machine operator, final quality control technician, maintenance technician, manufacturing process engineer, and others. The operation at 6682

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DeWITT, N.Y. — As Cryomech begins operations under a new owner, the local firm’s president tells CNYBJ it has job openings to fill and they’re listed at the Cryomech website.

The positions include assembly technician, CNC machine operator, machine operator, final quality control technician, maintenance technician, manufacturing process engineer, and others.

The operation at 6682 Moore Road in DeWitt is now known as Bluefors Cryocooler Technologies Inc., per the March 28 announcement that Bluefors had completed its acquisition of the company.

With the acquisition complete, the combined company moves forward as Bluefors, the firms previously said. Bluefors is a Helsinki, Finland–based manufacturer of cryogenic-measurement systems. The former Cryomech is a cryocooler-technology and manufacturing company.

The transaction was approved by the shareholders of Cryomech’s employee stock-ownership plan (ESOP) and the Committee for Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).

“Joining forces with our new team in Syracuse is a major milestone for Bluefors,” Rob Blaauwgeers, CEO and founder of Bluefors, said in a release. “Adding 60 years of history and expertise in cryogenics to our 15-year journey and now having a comprehensive portfolio of cryogenic products that get us from room temperature to the coldest temperatures on the planet, will strengthen our position to continue to meet and exceed our customers’ expectations in the future as well.”

Following the closing of the acquisition, Bluefors now has nearly 600 employees, with operations in Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, and the U.S.

Through the acquisition, Bluefors significantly increases its direct presence in the U.S. with about one-third of its employees based in New York. Consequently, Bluefors becomes an important part of the U.S.–based supply chain for cryogenic products used in quantum technology, fundamental physics research and in other select industries, while also strengthening the presence for the Cryomech portfolio in Europe.

“We’re glad to be part of the Bluefors team,” Rich Dausman, president of Bluefors Cryocooler Technologies and previously president of Cryomech, said in the release. “This is a great home for our team and together we will continue to take care of all our co-workers and customers around the world while growing together in the rapidly developing ultra-low temperature cryogenics market.”

Dausman continues to lead the team and operations based in DeWitt, which remains the home for the existing Cryomech products and services portfolio.

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