New York Makes The Best Chips

Did you know that they’re now going to be making chips in upstate New York?

Workers prep Global Foundries' newest semiconductor factory, "Fab 8" in Saratoga County, New York State. The fab comes on line for the first time with a maiden production run of microprocessors based on IBM's latest, 32nm, silicon-on-insulator chip technology. The chips will be used by manufacturers in networking, gaming and graphics.

No, we’re not talking potato chips.  Although they may make those as well, for all I know.

We’re talking advanced computer chips that will be jointly manufactured by GLOBALFOUNDRIES and IBM at the companies’ semiconductor fabs in New York’s “Tech Valley.”

The chips will be the first silicon produced at GLOBALFOUNDRIES’ newest and most advanced manufacturing facility, “Fab 8,” in Saratoga County.

The new products started life in production at IBM’s 300mm fab in East Fishkill, and the two companies expect to ramp up to volume production in the second half of this year.

The new chips will be based on IBM’s 32nm, Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) technology, which was jointly developed with GLOBALFOUNDRIES and other members of IBM’s Process Development Alliance, with early research at the University at Albany’s College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering.

The new technology vastly improves microprocessor performance in multi-core designs and speeds the movement of graphics in gaming, networking, and other image intensive, multi-media applications.

Watson, What Are You Made Of?

The SOI process was used to build the microprocessor that powered IBM Watson, the question-answering computer that won the “Jeopardy!” quiz show in early 2011.

GLOBALFOUNDRIES’ new Fab 8 campus, located in the Luther Forest Technology Campus about 100 miles north of the IBM campus in East Fishkill, stands as one of the most technologically advanced wafer fabs in the world and the largest leading-edge semiconductor foundry in the United States.

When fully ramped, the total clean-room space will be approximately 300,000 square feet and will be capable of a total output of approximately 60,000 wafers per month.

Fab 8 will focus on leading-edge manufacturing at 32/28nm and below.

The companies’ 32/28nm technology uses the same “Gate First” approach to High-k Metal Gate (HKMG) that has reached volume production in GLOBALFOUNDRIES’ Fab 1 in Dresden, Germany.

This approach to HKMG offers higher performance with a 10-20% cost saving over HKMG solutions offered by other foundries, while still providing the full entitlement of scaling from the 45/40nm node.

“IBM has helped make New York State one of the world’s premier locations for semiconductor design and manufacturing,” said Michael Cadigan, general manager, IBM Microelectronics, of the effort. “Recently, we announced that we would spend $3.6 billion researching and developing new silicon technology in New York. We bring the skills, investments and partnerships that keep New York at the forefront of advanced silicon development and manufacturing.”

Tax Day

Oy, vey, it’s tax day!

Normally April 15th, you got a whole extra weekend to submit your return (or file for that extension) due to a holiday.

So no complaining!

I finished my taxes early this year.  Or, I should say, my accountant did.

I never thought I needed an accountant until he did my taxes and I compared it to what I did when I filed them using TurboTax (no offense to TurboTax).

When you go get surgery, you hire a professional, right?  Why should taxes be any different?

New York State’s Department of Taxation and Finance did just that when they turned to IBM recently to help them build the IBM Tax Collections Optimizer system.

This systems has helped NY State recover $83M in delinquent taxes thus far, an eight percent increase from 2009, and double the average increase in prior years.

The IBM Tax Collections Optimizer uses a unique combination of data analytics and other models to create action plans for each tax case.

The plan optimizes the order of activities agents will take to maximize the total amount of debts collected while taking into consideration the case load, personnel resources, and the anticipated effectiveness of the suggested actions.

For example, New York State saw significant improvements in the efficiency of their field agents in 2010 versus a year ago, with overall collections from field staff increasing by 12 percent, and dollars per staff day increased 15 percent across all its field offices, and more than 40 percent in the NYC metro office.

“With IBM’s unique analytics technology, the State of New York has recovered unpaid funds faster, more efficiently and more fairly then ever before,” said Stephen Lafleche, Managing Director of New York State for IBM, about the system. “In this economic environment, analytics technology is proving its worth by boosting tax collections, enabling states to increase revenue and invest in programs that ensure continued competitiveness.”

You can learn more IBM public sector solutions here.

And remember.  If you’re mailing your return, make sure you get that postmark by midnight tonight!