Chipmaker is a bright spot in city’s economy

Announcements of new businesses coming to town always seem to generate prolonged excitement. The
community was elated to learn of a Hawaii-based company’s decision to locate the Hoku Materials polysilicon plant in Pocatello, and local leaders take it as a great sign that Nordic Windpower, a new arrival that makes nacelles for wind turbines, celebrated its first product shipment on Monday.

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Just 18 months ago, the in our business manufacturing future of the Pocatello facil- community, the ity was far from certain. ON Semicon- Semiconductor The plant, formerly , had AMI ductor plant. just been acquired by a Phoenix business. Shortly thereafter, the company announced plans to close a local manufacturing line called Fab 9, which produces 5-inch wafers for making microchips.

It was decided that production would continue in the plant’s more cost-effective Fab 10 line, which makes 8-inch wafers.

At the time of the announcement, about 170 workers were assigned to the Fab 9 line, which will close for good inthe next few days.
Many speculated product lines made in Pocatello would move to ON’s Phoenix or Gresham, Ore., plants and that a giant in the local business community would slowly fade away.

Now it appears the future is as bright as ever for the ON site. John Spicer, a Pocatello High School graduate who recently took over as ON’s site manager, said the number of workers who will be forced out has been reduced to 19.
Any job lost is unfortunate, but through attrition and personnel moves, what once loomed as a tough mid-December for the community now appears to be much more tolerable. Furthermore, ON is hiring engineers in other areas of the plant.

The Phoenix ON site has been scaling back its production, and the Pocatello site is actually getting some of the business. ON also has a list of high-tech new products that will utilize ON components in the coming year.
Not all semiconductor manufacturers have fared as well as ON in this tough economy.

Many have gone out of business, but their loss is ON’s gain — ON is in a position to acquire lots of new equipment to bolster Fab 10 for pennies on the dollar. The company’s stock has also rebounded nicely. ON stock (NASDAQ:ONNN) traded about $3 per share at this time last year. On Monday, it was listed at $8.22. ON remains as Bannock County’s largest property taxpayer and employs 700 workers. And the continued success of the plant is key for local charities, which rely heavily on ON employees for their fund drives. Even as Fab 9’s final day approaches, production in the line has been at full capacity. Spicer believes officials with ON didn’t realize what they had in Pocatello until a while after the acquisition. “There were a lot of question marks about what they were going to do with the Pocatello facility when they bought it,” Spicer said. “I think we have a clear future; it looks really good.” Spicer believes affordable electricity, an ample pool of qualified workers, availability of water and other factors have made Pocatello extremely competitive for ON — to the point that the company has plans to continue investing in Southeast Idaho.
Though it’s an uncertain business, and even Spicer wouldn’t venture a guess what may be in store for the local plant as far down the road as a decade, he’s convinced ON now knows what it has in Pocatello. Pocatello should also understand what it has in ON.
Idaho State Journal December 8, 2009