One of the largest employers in the area is IBM, which has a $3 billion microchip plant in East Fishkill.

No microchip plant is in the offing now, and no chip maker has even begun to commit to North Greenbush, which has about 11,000 residents.

In the modern era, the hot, arid conditions have proved ideal for electronic manufacturing, and microchip plants keep springing up in cotton fields.

That is a benefit for every borrower - every man or woman applying for a mortgage, every business wanting to finance a microchip plant.

Sony built a new microchip plant in the town.

They fear the vote will scare away foreign investors, who built microchip plants and other projects that have helped Saxony regain its historic status as the industrial engine of eastern Germany.

In one of the most significant new American investments, Intel chose Ho Chi Minh City as the site of a $600 million microchip plant that will begin production in 2008.

I.B.M. is nearing completion of a $2.5 billion microchip plant in Dutchess County.

The Hudson Valley has had a boom in high-tech businesses in recent years, including a new $2.5 billion microchip plant that I.B.M. plans to build in East Fishkill.

For two years, state lawmakers have been working to attract a microchip plant to New York, a pet project of Mr. Pataki's and Mr. Bruno's.