The state of Virginia has almost overnight become a hot new host for chip plants thanks to the IBM Corp-Siemens AG-Toshiba Corp memory chip alliance, plus the alliance’s newest member Motorola Inc. Motorola had already announced one semiconductor plant, in Goochland County, near the old Confederate capital of Richmond, when it said in October that it would join the alliance and build a US memory chip plant jointly with Siemens (CI No 2,779). Toshiba and IBM also announced plans for their first joint US memory chip plant in Manassas, Virginia, and now the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that Siemens and Motorola have chosen a state-owned tract of land in Elko, Henrico County, near Richmond International Airport for the planned $1,500m plant for 256M-bit and 1G-bit memory chips. The other contender was the Dallas-Fort Worth area of Texas. Neither Siemens nor Motorola would confirm the report.
