New Semiconductor Plant to Transform Small Texas Town

One of the lingering memories manufacturers have of the COVID-19 pandemic is the upheaval caused by supply chain disruptions when economies around the globe shut down for weeks or months at a time. In the United States, the auto industry was hit particularly hard by a shortage of critical computer chips that control nearly every facet of vehicle operation.

This shortage led to thousands of vehicles ending up in massive parking lots, just waiting on that last piece of the puzzle before they could be sold. This and thousands of other examples across a wide variety of industries represented a wake-up call to the U.S. semiconductor industry, which was unable to pick up the slack amid widespread disruptions to their own operations.

The federal government responded by passing the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) and Science Act (“CHIPS Act”) during the summer of 2022. According to McKinsey & Company, the CHIPS Act was intended “to jumpstart American competitiveness in the semiconductor industry and reduce dependence on foreign suppliers” in the wake of the supply chain disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Now, funding from the CHIPS Act is set to transform tiny Taylor, Texas, a suburb of Austin. In a recent Axios article, author Asher Price notes that “Taylor, a pretty community to Austin’s northeast, is about to go very big…The pending opening of a $17 billion Samsung computer chip factory has thrust this Williamson County town, with its rutted roads and stately, semi-occupied old brick Main Street buildings, into a role as a key player in world geopolitics.”

This new chip fab is coming to Taylor courtesy of “$6.4 billion in grants to Samsung to help the South Korean company expand production in the Austin area — part of a national push to boost domestic chip manufacturing…and the White House expects it to lead to more than 20,000 jobs.”

This is huge news for a town “[s]ettled 150 years ago by Czech and German immigrants” that only recently had a population of 17,300 people. “Taylor prospered in the late 19th century as a train depot for cattle, grain and cotton shipments.”

More recently, “it was most likely in the news as the operations headquarters of ERCOT, the state electrical grid operator embattled after ice-storm blackouts in 2021 and 2022, or for the T. Don Hutto Residential Center, a guarded, fenced-in facility used to detain non-US citizens awaiting a determination of their immigration status.”

Now, though, it will play a major role in hosting a 1,200-acre Samsung chip fab that will be “almost twice as large as Samsung’s flagship campus in South Korea.” And there’s potential for even more growth. “The company could potentially build multiple fabs in Taylor as a secondary cluster to their Austin site.”

Of course, one question readers might be thinking of is how does a town of 17,300 people provide enough skilled workers to a chip fab that could bring in as many as 20,000 new jobs? Obviously, the industry leaders and educational institutions in the area have their work cut out for them to establish a pipeline of skilled talent for these new facilities.

For those interested in establishing a pipeline of skilled talent for future chip fabs, the task of training the next generation of semiconductor technicians might seem like a daunting challenge. Fortunately, educational institutions and industry partners don’t need to recreate the wheel.

Amatrol’s unique combination of real industrial training equipment paired with cutting-edge eLearning curriculum can be used to create a modern semiconductor technician training program that will set up students for success.

With over 30 years of experience, Amatrol remains the world’s leader in technical education. The experts at Amatrol regularly guide educational institutions and industry clients through the process of customizing training programs to achieve specific goals.

Amatrol’s training programs include cutting-edge technologies in a wide variety of areas, including electrical, electronics, automation, HVACR, process control, pneumatics, hydraulics, and more. Visit Amatrol online to learn more about its many different types of industrial training programs. For more information about how Amatrol can help you inspire and train the next generation of workers, contact an expert at Amatrol today!