GRESHAM, Ore. — An Arizona-based company called Microchip Technology announced Monday it will be growing its Gresham production facility and adding jobs to its operations in Oregon. Over just the last couple of years, the chip and semiconductor company has created 300 jobs in the region — now they have announced a plan to add 300 more over the next couple of years.
The company produces chips for a wide variety of everyday products, from microwaves to parts for your car.
“Microchip has 120,000 customers for our applications, we ship 8 billion units a year for just about every application you can imagine," said Vice President Dan Malinaric.
It was just a couple of years ago that the chip company announced a multi-year plan to grow, and growing is precisely what they have been doing. On Monday the company announced how far they have come on a multimillion-dollar project to expand.
U.S. Senator Ron Wyden praised the company for keeping jobs in the country, and for keeping them here in Oregon.
“We don’t want to see the economy dependent on China, it’s national security 101," said Wyden.
The Senator added that you don’t have to look far to find where the success of the semiconductor is coming from.
“Oregon is the heart of the semiconductor industry and today we showed that heart is beating really strong,” Wyden said.
Malinaric said they don’t have an exact timeframe on when they’ll be adding those 300 jobs, but he did say it’s going to happen over the next 2 to 3 years.
Over the past several months, a group of Oregon lawmakers has been working on ways to attract more semiconductor manufacturers to the state by offering up incentives and freeing up land. Malinaric and Microchip Technology have been part of those discussions due to the company's existing presence in Gresham.