Micron would change Syracuse area for decades to come. Are we up to the challenge?

Syracuse, N.Y. – The promise of chip fab prosperity is real. Micron Technology’s plan to build a mammoth semiconductor fabrication campus near Syracuse should create thousands and thousands of high-paying tech jobs and lift the region’s fortunes in a way not seen for decades, national experts say.

But there is one major stumbling block that could slow that progress: Who will fill all those jobs?

The work of a chip fab – etching 8 billion tiny transistors onto a silicon memory chip the size of a fingernail – is specialized, to put it mildly. That doesn’t mean it requires a Ph.D. – some of the jobs do, but many can be done without a college degree – but every position requires some level of specialized training.

Even the construction jobs to build the facilities require special training.

Now that Micron has committed to build as many as four of the nation’s largest cleanroom facilities in the town of Clay – each the size of 10 football fields – job No. 1 for Central New York leaders is to develop a training ecosystem to supply the chip fabs with workers.

That means high schools, community colleges and universities working in unison to prepare students for careers at Micron and related businesses, said Mike Russo, president and CEO at the National Institute for Innovation and Technology, a government-funded nonprofit that facilitates work force development for semiconductor companies.

“They should look at it as a generational change for that region, and really bring together a concerted effort to develop that talent pipeline,’’ Russo said.

Micron announced Tuesday that over the next 20 years it plans to spend up to $100 billion – with a B – and build as many as four huge chip fabs at Onondaga County’s 1,400-acre business park in Clay. If fully built, the fabs could employ up to 9,000 people making an average of $100,000 each. They would create some 40,000 other jobs among suppliers, construction firms and other businesses.

Elected officials struggled to find the right superlatives to express their joy.

“Historic,’’ said County Executive Ryan McMahon.

“Life-altering,’’ Gov. Kathy Hochul said.

“Transformational,’’ U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer said.

Those adjectives are probably “too modest,” said Charles Wessner, a professor at Georgetown University who has studied the economic impacts of New York’s semiconductor industry. He said the semiconductor business is so vital to the world’s economy that it will elevate Syracuse.

“It brings you into the 21st Century in the region in a way that almost every other region in the world would like to have,’’ Wessner said. “Sometimes there’s good news and sometimes there’s very good news. This is just spectacular news.”

In a 2018 study funded in part by the Center for Economic Growth, a nonprofit development group in the Albany region, Wessner and his co-author looked at the effect of Global Foundries’ chip fab in Saratoga County, which started production in 2012. As of December 2015, the fab provided 3,500 on-site jobs paying an average of $92,000. It also spurred creation of an estimated 15,000 jobs among Global’s suppliers and all the restaurants, car dealerships, banks and urgent care facilities that serve its employees.

“The money has to go somewhere,’’ Wessner said.

Different skill sets

Construction started on Global Foundries in 2009, at a time when nearly all fabs were being built overseas. Now there is a “reshoring” of chip production in the U.S., driven by new federal incentives and fueling a construction boom in chip fabs.

Intel Corp. is building a $20 billion project in Ohio, with plans to spend up to $80 billion more on future facilities. Global Foundries is laying the groundwork to expand in Saratoga County. TSMC is building in Phoenix. Samsung is expanding in Texas.

That will exacerbate the existing shortage of workers, experts say. The U.S. will need at least 70,000 to 90,000 new chip fab workers by 2025 compared with 2020 levels, according to a widely cited study by Eightfold.ai, a talent management company. If the industry expands further, it could need up to 300,000 new workers.

In Saratoga County, Global Foundries has worked with 20 colleges to establish programs that prepare graduates for various levels of work at the chip fab. Hudson Valley Community College established a satellite campus right at the site in the town of Malta.

Some 45% of employees at the Malta chip fab do not have four-year college degrees, Global Foundries reports.

At least 17 high schools in the Saratoga area also have programs designed to give students the basic STEM education needed to work at Global or move on to a college program.

Even before the new fabs are built, experts see some potential for a shortage of construction workers capable of overseeing work on a fab.

Micron’s site in Clay will provide plenty of work for local building trades, but they will have to be trained and supervised by specialists who are familiar with the complexities of building a fab, said Joe Stockunas, president of SEMI Americas, part of SEMI, a global trade group representing semiconductor manufacturers and suppliers. Those specialists are in limited supply, he said.

Equipment in a fabrication plant is very expensive and highly sensitive. One of the key tools, a lithography system for putting integrated circuits on the chips, costs in the neighborhood of $150 million. The building must be constructed and outfitted to exacting standards.

“I don’t know anything that competes with this level of precision,’’ Stockunas said. “The welders, the pipe fitters, the construction trades, they’re all going to go through some sort of a training program, and then be supervised by folks who understand the complexities of what has to be done special.’’

At the height of construction at Global Foundries, there were more than 3,500 workers on site and the company was spending $4.4 million a day on wages and materials. Russo, who worked for Global Foundries before founding his nonprofit, said there will be more competition now for workers to build fabs.

“If you’re used to building an office building or a house, that’s different than building a semiconductor fab. There’s definitely different skill sets,’’ he said.

‘They will change your children’s lives’

As a company, Micron has a track record of being heavily involved in the communities where it has facilities. The company shoulders much of the cost of training workers, but its involvement goes beyond self-interest, according to a local economic development official in the company’s hometown of Boise, Idaho.

“The one thing Micron does extremely well is collaborate. They have been an incredible partner,” said Clark Krause, executive director of the Boise Valley Economic Partnership.

Micron provided the funding to open the Micron School of Material Science and Engineering at Boise State University.

The company also invested heavily to help open the region’s first community college, Krause said. The city was the last metropolitan area in the nation lacking a community college.

The College of Western Idaho opened 14 years ago and quickly became one of the fastest-growing community colleges in the nation with more than 30,000 students, Krause said. The campus includes the Micron Center for Professional Technical Education.

Micron also has worked in the community to spur interest among K-12 students in science, technology, engineering and math.

Krause said the company created a “technology bus” that visits local schools to encourage STEM careers. Micron also hosts educational programs at its headquarters for top students from the region.

“They will change your children’s lives in the most positive ways,” Krause said. “They put their money where their passion is, that’s for sure.”

In Central New York, Micron has agreed to contribute $250 million toward a $500 million community benefits initiative. The other half would come from government sources, perhaps with additional money from foundations.

Although details have not been announced, Hochul this week told Syracuse.com that the money will help train women, minorities and other underrepresented people for jobs at Micron.

“A lot of it’s going to be identifying the communities where it’s a bigger challenge for individuals to get the good-paying jobs,’’ Hochul said. “Communities of color, people with disabilities, veterans who come back and aren’t sure where to go. Women, in particular, as well. Because you think about tech jobs, women are woefully underrepresented in those careers, and they’re very good paying jobs.”

Hochul said she has assured Micron executives that New York will train enough people to work at the fabs.

Micron has an unusually extensive corporate commitment to diversity, inclusion and “social justice for all.”

The company provides detailed annual reports (60-plus pages) on its progress toward building a diverse workforce. If you want to know, say, what percentage of Micron’s vice presidents were white in 2020 (65.8%) compared with 2021 (58.9%), that’s reported. How many women hold technical jobs at Micron in the U.S. (15.4%) compared with Singapore (31.4%) and India (28.5%)? You get the idea.

Outside its own walls, Micron’s social advocacy last year ranged from declaring solidarity with Myanmar (the company raised $200,000 for Save the Children in Myanmar) to donating $100,000 to the Congressional Black Caucus and three political action committees supporting LGBTQ, Asian and Latino candidates.

The reports are posted on the company website for all to see.

‘It’s all about traffic’

The Syracuse area, and the northern suburbs in particular, could experience rapid growth from the Micron endeavor. Now is the time to start planning for that, said Dennis Brobston, president of the Saratoga Economic Development Corp., which helped lure Global Foundries to the small rural town of Malta.

“It’s all about traffic,’’ Brobston said. “It starts with traffic, it really does.”

Even now, 13 years after Global Foundries broke ground for its $15 billion facility, the Malta area suffers from unanticipated traffic congestion on certain roads and intersections, he said. Start planning now, he advised.

The Micron site in Clay is off Route 31, a road that already can be congested. State transportation officials have committed to making improvements there in conjunction with the Micron project, said McMahon, the county executive.

“Traffic will actually get better because of the improvements that will have to be made,’’ McMahon said.

The state has agreed to spend $200 million on road and infrastructure improvements around the fab site.

Central New York will need more housing, Brobston said. It will need more hotels for construction workers and others with temporary assignments at the chip fab. It will need more daycare.

And schools will need more ESL teachers.

Brobston said his granddaughter, who is in the fourth grade, has six classmates whose primary language is not English. Some are from Europe, some from Asia.

“People who are in this business speak many languages,’’ he said.

Global Foundries says its current Malta workforce of 3,000 includes employees from 57 countries.

Micron’s fab in Clay is likely to draw employees from abroad, too, at least in the early years.

When Micron starts production in Clay, as early as 2025, many of the first employees will be experienced staff from other fabs, Stockunas said. The company will need experienced hands to run the facility. Most of Micron’s manufacturing facilities are in Asia.

“They’ll definitely be bringing in experienced folks,’’ Stockunas said.

The psychological factor

Will tech workers really want to come to Syracuse? What about the snow?

Micron’s plans for Syracuse extend New York’s semiconductor manufacturing region westward from the so-called “Tech Valley.” It will add to facilities that already include Wolfspeed’s new silicon carbide fab in Marcy, Global Foundries’ campus in Malta, and the former IBM plant in Dutchess County, now owned by Global Foundries.

Enlarging that cluster with Micron’s fabs will give it more gravitational pull for both workers and suppliers, said Katie Newcombe, chief economic development officer at the Center for Economic Growth.

Companies that provide materials or services to semiconductor manufacturers will be more inclined to locate amid several fab sites, she said. And employees may be more willing to relocate from out of state, or from abroad, if they know there is more than one company they could work for.

In the end, the chip fab business also attracts people and businesses who want to be in a growing community, whether or not they have a connection to that industry, Newcombe said.

“There’s the psychological factor, too, right?” she said. “People like to be where there’s activity and investment.”

Staff reporter Mark Weiner contributed to this story.

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