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Sam Penrod ReportingThere is good economic news in Utah County after Micron is gearing up to open its Lehi plant to manufacture memory cards. It means about two thousand new jobs-- jobs that are finally coming after a delay of several years.
It is a busy atmosphere at Micron's Lehi facility as hundreds of contractors work overtime to get a memory card production plant up and running. Micron's plant has remained empty since it was built in the late 90's, and now it is giving the company a headstart in producing memory chips.
Brad Mortensen, Facilities Mgr., IM Flash: "Part of the advantage of Lehi is that we had the ability to complete the facility under a very aggressive schedule."
With the exploding market of flash memory, Micron is teaming up with Intel and the two companies have formed IM Flash Technologies to manufacture memory chips.
Todd Mathews, Fabrication Manager, IM Flash Technologies: "We're in the tool installation phase of this facility, where we are installing very high tech equipment inside the manufacturing facility and preparing for a production ramp creating nand flash devices."
Inside a clean room like this, is where workers will create the chips that are suddenly in demand for handheld electronics such as MP3 players, iPods and digital cameras. IM Flash is looking for hundreds of entry level workers.
Todd Mathews, Fabrication Manager, IM Flash Technologies: "The environment isn't a normal manufacturing environment; it requires individuals with very good logic, thinking skills and capability to understand and learn."
The companies are investing more than two billion dollars into the plant and expect to run it 24 hours a day because the demand for digital memory is so high.
Todd Mathews, Fabrication Manager, IM Flash Technologies: "Every week, we'll produce about 3.4 million of these in this factory."
Intel and Micron say their IM Flash technologies plant is ahead of schedule and they plan to begin full production sometime in march of next year.
IM flash expects to hire another one thousand people to work in the plant.
