Intel
boosts MTTC with equipment donation
Intel
Corp. presented a $17.5 million gift to Next Generation Economy
Inc. at UNMs Manufacturing Training and Technology Center
(MTTC) recently. Intels donation is 74 pieces of equipment,
including 6-inch-semiconductor manufacturing tools that are
no longer used at the companys Rio Rancho plant.
An initial
set of donated equipment is expected to be installed at UNMs
MTTC, a South Campus facility for teaching, research and development
and manufacturing prototyping. Its semiconductor cleanroom is
used to train engineers from UNM and technicians from TVI and
other community colleges in semiconductor manufacturing and
research.
Intel
has been operating in New Mexico for more than two decades and
has had the opportunity to work on a number of community projects,
but this donation truly has the potential to change the landscape
of the research corridor, said Bruce Leising, Intel vice
president of Technology and Manufacturing. Assets that
no longer are economical for high-output wafer-manufacturing
facilities at our Rio Rancho site are state-of- -the-art for
MEMS and will provide enormous opportunity for the microelectronics
cluster efforts for a long time.
MEMS refers
to microelectromechanical systems: tiny machines that can sense,
compute, act and communicate. Also called microsystems or micromachines,
MEMS have such widespread applications in transportation, medicine
and telecommunications that they are considered the biggest
thing since the semiconductor. New Mexico laboratories and local
companies see Central New Mexico as a global center for the
design and production of microsystems.
This
is a contribution not just to NextGen but to economic development
in the state and the region, said Larry Willard, NextGen
chair and UNM Board of Regents' president.
This
is an excellent example of strategic partnering between the
private and, ultimately, public sectors, said John Wood,
director of the center. The equipment strengthens the
regions ability to train engineers and technicians as
team members, strengthens NextGens ability to compete
for funds in emerging technology areas, and strengthens the
microsystem clusters ability to provide resources for
small startups that in turn will catalyze regional economic
development.
Said Joe
Cecchi, dean of the UNM School of Engineering, Not only
would this greatly enhance our educational and research programs
in MEMS, but it would also allow us to collaborate more extensively
with MEMS companies and further increase our economic
development activities.
NextGen
is an economic development group that focuses on industry clusters,
including microsystems. Like computer chips, microsystems can
be mass-produced at low cost by using photolithography. This
$14 billion industry is expected to be a $30 billion industry
by 2004.