Zenith's demise.

[peverett]

The people that operate these fabs will be all American. According to the article in the paper today, the one in New York will employ 1200. There are also supporting jobs, such as supplying the ultra clean gasses necessary for these fabs, etc. As I live in Austin, I do know people here that are making a living from the Samsung plant.

As far as other electronics jobs, the typical line that builds a cell phone or TV is mostly robots, etc.(+ a few repetitive jobs) This is true no matter where it is located. Open any electronic device today-the heart of it is the integrated circuit. All the rest of it is just support.

I do not know anything about vacuum pumps, but I do know that the company I work for, an American company, builds and supplies ICs to companies in Japan for the Japanese market! In addtion, there are several startup bringing out new chips here all of the time. Just because we do not build TVs any more does not indicate that the US electronics industry is dead.