LSI designs high-performance semiconductors that access, interconnect and store data, voice and video. The Gresham plant, which opened in 1998, is LSI's only US semiconductor manufacturing facility. Much of the company's manufacturing is already being done overseas through existing foundry partners (UMC, SMIC and ROHM Co Ltd.) in Taiwan, Japan, China and Malaysia.

The LSI source tells GlobeSt.com that while it still needs the type of product produced at the Gresham Plant – .18 micron wafers – enough of its customers are demanding it is pursue 65-nanometer process technology that it will no longer be profitable to operate the facility. It could, however, be profitable for a third-party manufacturer that still has multiple customers in need of .18-micron wafer. The LSI source says that is a likely scenario because 20% of all specialty chips and 34% of all integrated circuits still utilize the technology. In a news conference in New York on Tuesday afternoon, LSI President Abhi Talwalkar says the sale of the plant and the focus on "is the right manufacturing strategy for LSI Logic to better serve its customer base, reduce manufacturing costs to bolster its competitiveness and to enhance value for its shareholders."

The Gresham plant consists of a 242,000-sf wafer fabrication plant, a 125,000-sf office building, a 45,000-sf energy center and a 91,000-sf central processing facility. The buildings are at the center of the 300-acre property; the rest of the property is an operating tree farm that acts a buffer in the event of any problems related to the chemicals used in semiconductor manufacturing.