Eastern Germany's Silicon Dream

Wolfgang Wichmann was one of 8,000 workers at the gigantic semiconductor factory in the East German city of Frankfurt/Oder when the Berlin Wall fell. The plant had been a star asset of the communist bloc's electronics industry. Yet over the years, Wichmann, who helped develop new chips, watched one failed attempt after another to adapt the former Semiconductor Factory Frankfurt/Oder to a market economy. Finally, in July, after the workforce had shrunk below 100, he lost his job, too.

Now, the 47-year-old, one of an army of unemployed tech specialists in the area, has staked his hopes on a huge chip plant taking shape on the outskirts of Frankfurt/Oder, a city of 70,000 separated from Poland by the Oder River. So far, the future center of Communicant Semiconductor Technologies consists of little more than a concrete foundation covered with puddles of rusty water. But if the startup, co-founded by a former Lucent Technologies (LU ) executive in conjunction with local government, succeeds, Communicant will employ 1,500 and spark a revival of the city's chip industry. If the project doesn't work, says Wichmann, "you might as well turn out the lights and put up a sign that says: `Here stood the semiconductor capital of the German Democratic Republic."'