News Analysis
It wasn’t long ago that Sherman, Texas, might have been best known as the birthplace of Buck Owens, the late country-and-western star, or as the home of Austin College, one of the state’s oldest colleges. More recently, though, the city of nearly 44,000 souls about 65 miles north of Dallas has had something else to brag about: a growing reputation as a center of high-tech manufacturing.
In June, Taiwan-based semiconductor manufacturer GlobalWafers announced plans to build a state-of-the-art, $5 billion silicon wafer factory in Sherman, which beat out competing sites in South Korea and Ohio for the facility. The plant will produce advanced, 300-millimeter wafers—which are currently manufactured in Asia—and could support as many as 1,500 jobs over time….