Motorola Inc has finally its option to buy 230 acres of land about 15 miles from downtown Richmond in Virginia, and will invest several billion dollars to build a wafer fabrication plant to make PowerPC microprocessors. All the US press reports have the scale of investment tagged at $3,000m. The new plant will be the company’s semiconductor sector’s highest priority, construction will begin next year, with production of semiconductors starting in 1998. The plant center will initially employ about 700 people, and could eventually employ about 5,000 people in several million square feet of buildings once the site is fully developed in five to 10 years. The investment comes way to late to save Apple Computer Inc from the pain caused by shortages of particular PowerPC variants. The site will be a vertically integrated manufacturing plant at which chips will be fabricated from raw silicon wafers, assembled, tested and shipped to customers. The company says it still has an option on an additional 140 acres lying adjacent to the Goochland site.
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