Semiconductor equipment manufacturer Lam Research said Thursday it will open a new factory in Sherwood this fall and hire 300 people to work there amid a massive, global boom in demand for computer chips.
Already, Lam says it has added 1,000 employees over the past 18 months at its 52-acre Tualatin campus, whose workforce now numbers 4,000. The company appears to have maxed out space at that old site, though, and so chose to expand to a new facility in adjacent Sherwood.
The Silicon Valley company designs and builds tools for semiconductor manufacturers. Chips are in short supply all over the world amid a boom in demand for computers, autos, appliances and other technology-dependent consumer products.
Lam’s sales jumped 45% in its last fiscal year, and its stock price has nearly doubled in the past 12 months as semiconductor manufacturers snapped up Lam’s tools so they can make more of their own chips.
Electronics manufacturing is among Oregon’s largest industries, accounting for $15 billion in annual exports – nearly 60% of the state’s total. The region’s factories cover the industry’s full range, from the silicon wafers that serve as the foundations for computer chips, to the production equipment to make the chips, to the finished chips made by Intel and other large manufacturers.
Lam’s Tualatin site opened in 1990 as a chip factory owned by a Japanese company, Oki Semiconductor. Lam has operated the 600,000-square-foot facility since acquiring
Novellus, which previously occupied the facility, in 2011.
The Sherwood site, about two miles away in the new Cipole Road Industrial Park, will be 45,000 square feet.
“Having a leading semiconductor manufacturing equipment company in Sherwood will create new high-quality jobs and bring significant economic impact to our community,” Sherwood Mayor Keith Mays said in a written statement.
Oregon’s electronics sector is facing the same labor shortages plaguing industries across the state and across the country. Lam said it has been working with Portland Community College to provide students with industry experience while they’re in school, and to hire them once they finish their associate’s degree.
Lam said it plans to begin training new hires for the Sherwood site in Tualatin before the new facility opens in December. It is hiring assemblers, test technicians, engineering technicians, and material handlers and Lam says it will work with two staffing agencies, Acara Solutions and Randstad USA, to fill the new jobs.
“We are building the manufacturing workforce of the future, from our comprehensive training program and next-generation manufacturing techniques to our agile and collaborative work environment,” Lam CEO Tim Archer said in a statement.
Bruce Coleman, Sherwood’s economic development manager, said the city wants to diversify its economic base and move beyond its reputation as a bedroom community.
“We’re really working very hard to get a better balance in the community,” Coleman said. “We’re seeing a tremendous amount of light industrial development taking place in Sherwood.”
Lam didn’t receive any tax incentives associated with this expansion, according to Coleman.
Chipmakers are expanding all over the world. Both Intel and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. are building new factories in Arizona, Intel plans new sites in Europe, and Samsung is preparing to build a new, $17 billion factory in Texas.
Intel is Oregon’s largest corporate employer and the state is the nation’s largest electronics exporter, on a per capita basis, with some of the country’s biggest tax breaks for large manufacturers. The state appears poised to miss out on the ongoing boom in new chip factories, though, in part because the Portland area doesn’t have huge parcels of industrial land ready for development.
Oregon is benefitting anyway, albeit on a relatively modest scale, as electronics manufacturers like Lam, Microchip Technology and others near Portland add staff and invest in factory upgrades to meet the enormous demand.
-- Mike Rogoway | mrogoway@oregonian.com | twitter: @rogoway |
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