Microchip Technology Agrees to Buy Fujitsu Plant for $183.5M

GRESHAM, OR-Seven months after shuttering its 820,000-sf memory chip plant, Fujitsu Microelectronics has found a buyer for the 196-acre property, which includes 75 acres of raw land available for development.

Assuming it gets the $20-million in tax breaks its looking for from Multnomah County via the state’s Strategic Investment Program, Arizona-based Microchip Technology has agreed to pay $183.5 million for the plant, which in 2000 received $350-million in upgrades to convert all production lines to flash memory, the memory used for cell phones and other handheld electronic devices.

The transaction is expected to close sometime between the end of August and the end of October, depending on Fujitsu’s eagerness to seal the deal. Microchip says it expects to be up and running at the plant by July 2003. Employment is expected to hit 60 initially and rise to more than 300 in the coming years.