As upstate New York continues to establish itself as a hub for high-tech industry, a groundbreaking ceremony was held today in Saratoga Springs for a chemical manufacturing company that will supply the region with an important product.
Officials gathered at the W.J. Grande Industrial Park in Saratoga Springs at the future site of a hydrogen peroxide facility, operated by company PeroxyChem.
The facility will directly support chip manufacturing at GlobalFoundries, in nearby Malta. The company had previously supplied GlobalFoundries with hydrogen peroxide from its plant in Texas.
Bruce Lerner is president and CEO of PeroxyChem.
“It really enables us to reduce the capital investment required to serve the client because you can now drive 20 miles, several times a day with any number of these trailers.”
The company will be able to truck its highly refined hydrogen peroxide in teflon-lined trailers. Each one can store 22,000 liters of the liquid used in semiconductor manufacturing.
PeroxyChem has also worked with IBM, which is relocating its chip manufacturing to GlobalFoundries’ Fab 8 site. Lerner said although the location will help serve other customers in the Northeast, the primary focus is to deliver product to the Malta-based chipmaker.
“There’s some small spillover effects for positive benefit for other clients that we can serve from here, but this is principly a facility driven by and for our relationship with GlobalFoundries.”
Lerner said PeroxyChem is investing about $30 million on the project that will save the company money in the long-term.
The odorless, colorless hydrogen peroxide used for semiconductor manufacturing is highly refined. It’s used as an oxidizing agent.
GlobalFoundries General Manager Dr. Thomas Caulfield said the partnership will help his company become more competitive.
“You create a supply chain ecosystem close to where you operate, it reduces cost-time to market,” said Caulfield. “So there’s a lot of opportunity for us to be competitive when we bring our ecosystem close to us.”
The facility is another step toward the centralization of high-tech research and manufacturing in the Capital Region, including the ever-growing College of Nanoscale Science and Technology in Albany.
Dennis Brobston, president of Saratoga Economic Development Corporation, said the new high-tech facility is an example of “if you build it they will come”.
“PeroxyChem is really the first manufacturer that’s going to be here for Global, and we expect to see others as well. Tooling and other products.”
The new facility is expected to create 10 permanent jobs, along with 35 temporary construction jobs. PeroxyChem ‘s new plant is expected to be opened a year from now.
