GE to set up power electronics packaging facility in New York
21 August 2015
GE Global Research will establish a power electronics packaging facility on the campus of SUNY Polytechnic Institute’s Colleges of Nanoscale Science and Engineering in the town of Utica, New York.
The investment is expected to create 850 jobs in the Mohawk Valley in the next ten years.
Being the anchor tenant of the Computer Chip Commercialization Center (Quad C) at the institute, the packaging facility will lead to the commercialization of power electronics applications for defense, super-computing, tablets, cell phones, and others, SUNY Poly said.
The facility will implement GE's silicon carbide technology to manufacture power electronics that connect the circuits, provide power, and discharge heat to keep the chips functioning.
Power device applications are expected to be used in industrial products such as wind turbines, utility-scale solar inverters, data centers and hybrid cars.
GE chief technology officer Mark Little said: "Together with New York State and SUNY Polytechnic Institute in Albany, and now Utica, we are creating a Silicon Carbide Corridor that will be the epicenter of the next revolution in power.
"In Utica, it will expand the focus from computer chip commercialization to creating the first US based Power Electronics Manufacturing Center with GE's silicon carbide technology."
GE's investment forms part of Nano Utica initiative, a $1.5bn economic development plan for Mohawk Valley through a nanotechnology-driven ecosystem. It includes the Quad C and the Marcy Nanocenter, and is managed by SUNY Poly.
Nano Utica has also attracted a $2bn investment from Austrian company AMS, which will build a wafer fabrication facility at the Marcy Nanocenter. The sensors and analog ICs manufacturer is expected to create 1,000 jobs.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said: "Over the past few years, we have worked to reverse the negative and invest in Upstate NY - and today we're taking another huge step forward.
"With GE and AMS joining the Nano Utica initiative, we're seeing the region's economy gathering momentum unlike ever before. The Mohawk Valley is beginning an economic revolution around nanotechnology."
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