uch of the former East Germany is ever more deserving of its "Silicon Saxony" nickname. Be-sides a growing nanotechnology cluster in the Dresden area, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), the second-largest

BASF Coatings' plant in Münster-Hiltrup, Germany, now includes a distribution center designed to improve logistics functions and facilitate the delivery of finished products to customers throughout Europe. And it had better deliver on that promise, according to CEO Jean-Pierre Monteny. "This site, like any other, has to keep demonstrating its viability in the competition with other sites to provide the best possible solution," he noted at the opening of the expansion in September 2004.

manufacturer of microprocessors, has recently invested US$2.4 billion in a new semiconductor-components manufacturing facility in that city. Testing and production are slated to begin in mid-2005.
      AMD opened its first wafer fab facility in Dresden in 2000. Known as AMD Fab 30, it employs 1,000 people. The second plant -- AMD Fab 36 -- will increase AMD's work force in the Dresden area to 2,000. AMD Fab 36 will implement the third generation of AMD's Automated Precision Manufacturing program in the production of 300-mm. wafers for next-generation microprocessors. Infineon Technologies, another leading producer of microchips, also operates a 300-mm. plant in Dresden, and announced in early 2004 its plans to invest $152 million in a memory development center on the property that will incorporate 25,000 sq. ft. (2,300 sq. m.) of clean room space and add 120 jobs to its Dresden payroll.
      AMD and Infineon are two investors in a new Center for Nanoelectronic Technology taking shape in Dresden. The two manufacturers will invest EUR170 million (US$211 million) in research projects at the center over the next five years. Public partners in the center include Germany's Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the State of Saxony and the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft -- an institutional umbrella group of more than 80 applied research centers in Germany.
      Saxony already is home to operations from more than 70 U.S. manufacturers, employing approximately 10,000 people. The city of Dresden is home to more than 750 companies in the microelectronics, information technology and communications industries.
      Elsewhere in Germany, BASF Coatings, a division of the German chemical giant BASF, has opened a US$25-million distribution center at its Münster-Hiltrup plant in the state of Northrhine-Westphalia. The center incorporates key logistics attributes that will make the facility significantly more cost-competitive and will im-prove delivery-to-customer processes. "We are improving the infrastructure at the Münster site by consolidating the logistics of finished product shipments at a single site," explains Dr. Gerd Kissau, site manager.