Michigan's Silicon Valley is a hard-won dream come true

http://blog.mlive.com/bcopinion/2008/12/michigans_silicon_valley_is_a.html

With a lot of hard, earnest work, dreams do come true.

Hemlock Semiconductor Corp. announced last week that it would, as all here had hoped, build a new $1 billion plant expansion at its Saginaw County site.

It gets even better.

To boot, Dow Corning Corp. will build a plant next door to make monosilane, a component in the manufacture of thin-screen technology such as photovoltaic solar cells and liquid crystal displays. Dow Corning owns almost 64 percent of Hemlock Semiconductor, making it the majority partner in the joint venture with two other companies.

Local, business and state officials lobbied Hemlock Semiconductor hard for the giant expansion. A major lure for the company is the $350 million, 12-year tax credit that legislators passed, specifically to bring the company's electrical costs for the expansion into territory competitive with other regions of the county.

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