New IBM chip designed in Vermont

• IBM's new chip developed in Essex Junction is smaller and faster than the chip it replaces%2C making longer battery life and fewer dropped calls possible.
• New chip developed in Essex Junction puts smartphone manufacturers a step closer to creating a "world phone" that would work anywhere.
• IBM executive in Essex Junction says she can't keep up with demand for the company's smartphone chips.

IBM says it has developed a new mobile phone chip in Essex Junction that will help manufacturers offer fast downloads, fewer dropped calls and longer battery life for their smartphones and other devices.

The new chip, designated 7SW SOI, is 30 percent smaller than its predecessor, 7RF SOI, and 30 percent faster. IBM shipped more than 7 billion of the older chips in the past three years, said Christine Dunbar, the executive in charge of the specialty foundry business unit at the Essex Junction fab, as microchip manufacturing plants are known.

Dunbar said it's likely that every smartphone in Vermont has chips that were made in Essex Junction, but IBM keeps secret which manufacturers are using the company's technology in their products.

"I wish we could brand it that way, 'Made in Vermont,' and put one of those stickers on it," Dunbar said. "It's very exciting. There's lots of demand for this product right now."

The new chip developed in Essex Junction also takes advantage of more frequency bands, bringing manufacturers closer to being able to produce a "utopian" smartphone that would work anywhere in the world, said Duncan Needler, who manages marketing for IBM's semiconductor division in Vermont.

Needler said a so-called "world phone" remains a theoretical goal for smartphone manufacturers, even though economically, "it doesn't make sense to create that phone, because very few people would take advantage of that phone."

Design kits for IBM's new smartphone chip will be available this month, Needler said, allowing clients to begin designing products incorporating the new chips.

"We'll be accepting the first designs in three or four months, with production coming six months after that," he said.

IBM's Essex Junction fab has suffered a series of layoffs since 1994, when 300 employees lost their jobs. That marked the first layoff since the plant opened in 1957. The most recent round of layoffs came at the end of February, when about 140 workers lost their jobs. Last June, IBM let go 419 workers, dropping the estimated total number of employees in Essex Junction to about 4,000.

The Essex Junction fab peaked at about 8,500 workers around 2001. Starting in 2009, IBM stopped releasing the number of employees in Essex Junction. The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources, reported in February that IBM was looking to sell its chip business and that GlobalFoundries, based in Santa Clara, Calif., had emerged as the most likely buyer. GlobalFoundries declined to comment.

Neither Dunbar nor Needler would address rumors of a potential sale of the Essex Junction plant, but Dunbar said IBM is continuing to invest in the facility.

"As a business executive, my biggest concern is I have more demand that I have capacity to support," she said.

Contact Dan D'Ambrosio at 660-1841 or ddambrosio@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/DanDambrosioVT.