Julia Rose | 11/11/14

If you happen to find yourself on the SUNY Polytechnic Institute's campus, it's hard to miss the massive glass building being built off to the side. That building is known as Quad-C which stands for Computer Chip Commercialization Center and is on track to becoming a hub for nanotechnology right here in the Mohawk Valley.

"We're in that phase now of the exterior of the building is really almost finished, it's come along and now we're putting in all of that support infrastructure, you know what makes nano-manufacturing, nano-manufacturing,” says Dr. Robert Geer, Senior Vice President and Chief Operation Officer of SUNY Polytechnic Institute. 

Dr. Geer says he's been watching the transformation of Quad-C from the very beginning and is amazed how far crews have come in just over a year. Inside the building, clean rooms are being built, a construction process that calls for very special protocol.

"You have to have a clean environment because you’re looking at the nanoscale. A particle of dust can destroy an entire portion of a wafer,” said Dr. Geer. 

Dr. Geer explains that nanotechnology is in almost every device that we use on a daily basis like a cell phone or a computer and the chips that make these essentials work will soon be manufactured right inside the walls of Quad-C in special clean rooms.

There are two levels of clean room being built that require special air ventilation systems to filter out all of the dust particles. Crew members working inside these rooms must suit up in special clean gear. Dr. Geer says they're expected to be 50,000 square feet.

While those are being built, other parts of Quad-C are coming along as well like offices and an atrium lobby. As construction of quad-c progresses - more and more tenants are coming forward to use the space.

"A clean room facility like this is, you know whether you have the companies that come in that build the chips, the companies that take the chips and assemble them to be ready to go into a product, that's the type of manufacturers we're going to have here and you know partners are signed on and I think there's many more exciting announcements to come in terms of this being the start and expanding it,” said Dr. Geer. 

Dr. Geer says the major construction should wrap up by the end of the year.

WUTR: Nano Tech: The Next Big Thing; A Look Inside Quad-C

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