The IBM alliance
Grose handed over to Jim Doran, who has recently been appointed to the post of SVP and GM of the Dresden fab, which has been renamed Fab 1 by GF.
Doran is one of a few GF execs involved in the handling of the IBM alliance which, as we've previously written, is of critical importance to GF in helping it achieve the technology leadership it needs. He explained GF has recently increased its level of involvement with the alliance and conceded the importance of GF's first new customer as a precedent setting event.
"Our first customer is going to be very happy," he said.
Next up was Terry Caudell, director of wafer manufacturing. It's his job to design the fabs themselves and he explained that the fab they're going to build here (Fab 2) will just be the first module of a planned three identical complexes.
It looks like the primary architectural differences at Fab 2, in comparison with Fab 1, will concern facilitating customer support during the manufacturing process.
