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Show Signetics announces '68 expansion program to double employment Signetics Corporation today announced an expansion program pro-gram that will double its plant size and employment in Utah Valley. James F. Riley, president of the Corning Glass Works subsidiary, sub-sidiary, said construction will begin in April on a new 70,000 square foot plant two miles north of the company's 30,000 square foot leased facility at Provo. In describing the firm's rapid rap-id growth in seven years, Riley pointed out that "by the time the new Utah plant is in full operation the total employment will have grown 25 times and the space more than 13 times or more than 2000 employees in three facilities and more than 250,000 square feet of plant space." Utah's labor force is the most manageable, easy-to-train, highly educated general throng that ever put the plus in production pro-duction that puts profits in pockets. Riley announced the expan- i sion at a civic luncheon Thurs- 1 day (today) at the Riverside I Country Club. Joining Riley for i the announcement luncheon were executives from both -firms including Amory Houghton, Hough-ton, Jr., chairman of the board of Corning Glass Works. Last night Riley and Houghton met with Governor Calvin L. Ramp-ton Ramp-ton in Salt Lake City to outline out-line Signetics develop m e n t plans in Utah. Employment now about 300, is expected to eventually rise to at least 600 when the new plant is in full operation, Riley Ri-ley said. The new plant will be built, on a 12 acre site and comple-j tion is scheduled for December! of this year. Growing demand Riley said the expansion is necessary "because of a rapidly growing demand for integrated circuits." Current industry figures fig-ures indicate integrated circuit sales of $345 million in 1968, up from $268 million last year. Manufacture of integrated circuits consists basically of three major processes; fabrication fabrica-tion of silicon wafers, assembly of circuits, and electrical testing test-ing to assure conformation with specifications. The present plant has been used soley for assembly, Riley said, but the new p!ant will be used for all three processes. Signetics is a leading producer pro-ducer of integrated circuits for electronic uses. The tiny devices de-vices are used widely in aerospace aero-space systems, computers and such commercial products as test instruments. The circuits are called "integrated" "in-tegrated" because they combine in one unit a number of components com-ponents such as transistors, diodes, di-odes, resistors, and capacita-tors. capacita-tors. Riley said Signetics has the technological capacity to combine com-bine more than 100 such components com-ponents on a base no larger than a pin head. The circuit is so small it is barely visable to the naked eye, yet rugged enough to withstand the vibration vibra-tion and shock of a missile in flight. Signetics opened its present Provo plant in 1966. "We originally origi-nally were attracted to the Utah Valley," Riley said "by the attractiveness of the area, the presence of excellent educational educa-tional facilities, and by the well educated and resourceful people peo-ple we need for a technological oriented plant. Our experience here in the past year," he continued, con-tinued, "convinces us we were right on every point and our decision to expand here is a new affirmation of our faith in Utah." William Gilchrist, plant manager man-ager at Provo, will be manager of the new plant. Signetics Corporation was founded in 1961 and in 1962 became a subsidiary of Corning Glass Works, a 117 year old manufacturer of more than 58,000 different products. Signetics Sig-netics has its headquarters at Sunnyvale, Calif., and operates plants at Sunnyvale, Provo, Seoul, Korea. |