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June 9, 2004 -The German city of Dresden is one of the country’s shining stars when it comes to microtechnology. The city’s reputation could be buffed even further if plans to create a nanotech research center focusing on advanced chip development are successful.
The German government announced this week that it is in advanced talks with several companies and organizations in the Dresden area in hopes of creating the center in the capital of the eastern federal state of Saxony.
“The German government is keen to promote an initiative that could further improve the competitiveness of Dresden as a leading European site for chip development and manufacturing,” a government spokesman from the country’s Federal Ministry for Education and Research told reporters.
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The city of Dresden forged through the economic upheaval of the 1990s and convinced manufacturing giant Siemens AG to build its semiconductor plant there in 1993. Another heavyweight to choose Dresden for the site for a plant was U.S. chip maker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), which is now constructing a second plant in the city.
When Siemens and AMD took up residency in Dresden the city immediately became a magnet for other like-minded businesses. Biotechnology startup Cenix BioScience GMbH, which uses ribonucleic acid (RNA) to develop new drugs, emerged out of an academic research project in Heidelberg.
AMD and the Munich-based semiconductor manufacturer Infineon are the two major players in the proposed research center initiative in Dresden.
According to Franz Miller, spokesman for the Fraunhofer Society, a government-funded research organization coordinating the project, the government is talking with several small firms about the possible center. The companies are from the Saxony region and the Technical University of Dresden, which would also be a part of the research center.
“This concept is to create a platform in which several companies with specific specialties can work together to advance technological developments in the nanochip field,” he said. “We want to get a jumpstart on others.”
Neither AMD nor Infineon wanted to comment on the nanotech research center project, citing the fact that talks are still underway.
An exact cost has not been tallied on the project, although estimates start at around $100 million and go up to $245 million. German state and federal governments are expected to contribute in the tens of millions. The facility would likely be located on the grounds of Infineon’s chip factory in Dresden, where a new building would be constructed.
Part of the government’s reason for picking Dresden for the proposed research center is to secure the city’s place as Germany’s high-tech hot spot. The research center would also attract investors interested in an area (nicknamed “Silicon Saxony”) boasting several research centers, along with a highly educated work force.
In addition to Dresden’s already existing wafer plant, AMD recently broke ground on a second factory there, budgeted at $2.4 billion, that will manufacture 13,000 300-mm silicon wafers a month. Along with Infineon, chip maker ZMD, rounds out the group that has put Dresden on the international microtechnology map.
Focusing on high-tech has saved Dresden from high unemployment and industry bankruptcies that much of the rest of eastern Germany has battled. Dresden has bucked the trend partly thanks to its history under communism. In East Germany, the city was already a center of high-tech, since the University of Dresden was the country’s leading technology school.
Saxony was also the center of microelectronic production, employing some 30,000 people before the Berlin Wall fell. The technology and manufacturing facilities might have been behind the west, but the skills were top notch. The city has benefited from that base, which has acted as a magnet for companies in need of highly skilled labor.
The government wants to keep the positive trend going, and is hoping to convince semiconductor industry players to get on board its research train that it believes is headed toward the future of chip making. It wants Dresden to be at the center.
Dresden’s position as a small tech mecca appears to have some bright days ahead. In 2002, Archer Daniels Midland Co., DuPont and Infineon Technologies AG announced they would build their $250-million joint research and development center for photomask technology in the city.
“We want this platform to bring industry and research institutes together, because we think you can other achieve a bigger technological jump with strong cooperation,” said Fraunhofer’s Miller. “You need a certain critical mass.”