[caption id="attachment_13475" align="alignright" width="430"] Visitors tour the new Computer Chip Commercialization Center, also called Quad-C, at SUNY Polytechnic Institute on Saturday, Nov. 1, 2014. Jolene Cleaver - Oneida Daily Dispatch[/caption]

MARCY – Hundreds turned out Saturday for tours of the not-yet-completed Computer Chip Commercialization Center, dubbed “Quad-C,” at the SUNY Polytechnic Institute campus in Oneida County.

The center is said to be completed by the end of 2014, with jobs starting sometime in the second quarter of 2015.

The 253,000 square foot $125 million facility, which sits on 12 acres, is ultimately expected to create 1,500 jobs with an average annual salary of $91,000.

Job fairs have already started being held for positions at the facility.

The center will be a hub for computer chip production complete with cleanrooms, as well as integrating with SUNY academic programs, said Dr. Robert Geer, senior vice president of SUNY Polytechnic.

[caption id="attachment_13474" align="alignnone" width="533"] The new Computer Chip Commercialization Center, also called Quad-C, at SUNY Polytechnic Institute on Saturday, Nov. 1, 2014. Jolene Cleaver - Oneida Daily Dispatch[/caption]

Geer added that when the facility first opens, there will be a few hundred jobs, “and then it will ramp up from there.”

During a tour of the facility, visitors were treated to a collection of still photographs that detailed the project to-date, starting in June of 2013 with its groundbreaking.

They also got a glimpse of the unfinished cleanroom where fabrication operations will take place.

Answering questions was John Rhude, senior construction manager for M&W Group, the construction management group heading up the project, whose United States headquarters are in Watervliet, outside Albany.

Answering questions from children about what will be made at the facility, Rhude said, “chips for phones and other computer equipment.”

Getting more specific for others in the tour group, he added that among the products that might be manufactured at the site could be the 450 millimeter semiconductor wafer. The size is not yet the standard, but may become so in the near future, he said.

One woman agreed that it was a great thing to have “smart” jobs come to the area, and that it created opportunities for people with skillsets in engineering and other related fields to find high-profile employment in central New York in stead of leaving the area.

“We had a wonderful turnout,” said Geer, looking to all the community members who showed for the open house.

Oneida Daily Dispatch: SUNY Polytechnic Institute’s new computer chip center to employ 1,500

Joleene Cleaver | Nov 1, 2014