ALBANY, N.Y. ( NEWS10 ) — A Capital Region company that makes wafers for the semiconductor industry are firing nearly half of their workforce just before the holiday season. NEWS10 speaks with some local workers who were let go with little notice.
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“About 40 of us got that email and that was it. Turned in our badges and that was all the warning we got,” said former pallidus employee, Anthony Williams.
As the semiconductor and chip business grows in the Capital Region some employees at pallidus are feeling the downside of the changing industry. The company makes 6-inch wafers for computer microchips. The market now calls for 8-inch wafers. A professor at UAlbany Nano Tech suggests, “Making that switch would require investment in new tools but may also reduce the overall cost per unit (and hence price) of a chip.”
The wafer maker company, pallidus, writes on their website that they secured a multimillion-dollar investment in 2021 to beef up their facility. Yet, employees say the company was struggling. “They had gone to a worldwide conference and realized that we were behind the ball on what we were producing,” said Williams.