Accentuating the positive could have been the mantra of the Pittsburgh Digital Greenhouse as it provided its annual progress update.

Undaunted by a lethargic technology industry and sluggish job growth, new Chief Executive Officer David Ruppersberger focused on the economic development engine's university-related triumphs.

The state has spent $21.5 million to turn the region into a microchip hub. To date, the four-year-old technology development engine says it has generated a net county 228 jobs in its 13-county southwestern Pennsylvania region and awarded $11.4 million in research funds to universities and companies for "system-on-a-chip" technology. Considered to be the wave of the future in semiconductors, SoC, as it is known, is a smaller, more efficient chip making method.

Launched in 1999 by ex-Gov. Tom Ridge to hatch a cluster of semiconductor-focused technology firms, the effort has been stifled by the economy. The Greenhouse had the lofty charge of bringing 1,500 jobs to the region by 2002. But 2003 was the hardest for the organization's member companies, as 520 jobs were lost among the Greenhouse's 27 members. The net loss was 439 because 81 jobs were added by some of the companies. Ruppersberger declined to say which companies laid off employees.

"We're seeing signs across the membership that things are starting to free up," said Ruppersberger, who succeeded now state Secretary of Community and Economic Development Dennis Yablonsky. "We need to attract companies ... and grow start-ups."

The research money has brought 19 professors to Carnegie Mellon University, Penn State and the University of Pittsburgh for "systems on chip" courses and programs. The Greenhouse also funneled $500,000 to help launch CMU's year-old Center for Computer and Communication Security which has won close to $40 million in government funding. The program has over 300 students.