RF Micro Devices, a Greensboro-based global leader in wireless technology, recently announced that it will invest $118 million to expand its Guilford County campus and open a smaller facility in Iredell County. The company considered several sites, including expanding a plant it owns in China, before deciding to grow in North Carolina.

The company will add 350 jobs during the next four years.

RF Micro Devices (RFMD) manufactures radio frequency integrated circuits for global wireless communications industries. The company, which was founded in Greensboro in 1991 as a small semiconductor design shop, reported revenue of $1.02 billion for its 2007 fiscal year, which ended in March.

The company plans a $103 million expansion in Greensboro that will create 300 new jobs and bring RF Micro Devices’ total Guilford County employment to more than 2,200 workers. In addition, it plans to build a smaller $15 million facility in Mooresville, N.C., that will employ 50 workers. The majority of the new jobs will be skilled manufacturing positions.

The state’s Economic Investment Committee voted to award a Job Development Investment Grant to facilitate the project. Under the terms of the JDIG agreement, an 11-year grant will be established.

For each year the company meets required performance targets, the state will provide a grant equivalent to 70 percent of the state personal income withholding taxes derived from the creation of the new jobs. If RFMD creates all of the jobs called for under the agreement and sustains them for 11 years, the company could receive a maximum benefit from the JDIG of $4.25 million.

Job Development Investment Grants are awarded only to new and expanding businesses and industrial projects whose benefits exceed the costs to the state and which would not be undertaken in North Carolina without the grant. Since the first grant was awarded in 2003, the program has been responsible for creating more than 20,000 jobs and $3 billion in investments in North Carolina.

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