K., >>>"regarding what is going on at NSM's Portland fab. Does anyone actually KNOW
what is going on??"
The explanation is very simple. East Coast sand just doesn't produce Silicon that's as pure as West Coast sand does. Ask Transitron or Sylvania. The end.
Actually, I wondered years ago why Fairchild built a fab in Portland ME. (National inherited it when they bought Fairchild). There isn't another semiconductor company around for hundreds (thousands?) of miles. If I'm an employee of NSM, Portland, I'd like to think there was another place or two to go to work for locally, if, for whatever reason, I had to leave. Oh, there's IBM in Vermont and upstate NY, but they don't hire anyone with experience from another company...might have picked up too many bad habits. So this is an island of a company, or fab, and the shore is a very long distance away.
I hope NSM, Portland makes it. I may have some long lost relatives or friends working there.
Tony |
