APPLIED Materials Inc., the world’s largest vendor of chip manufacturing equipment, opened a new production line machinery lab in China on Thursday to develop a range of equipment.
Separately, ON Semiconductor Corp. is teaming up with Chinese electronics manufacturer Hisense Electric Co. Ltd. to establish a joint center to develop energy-saving power chips for LCD TVs (liquid crystal display televisions), plasma display TVs and CRT TVs (cathode ray tube televisions), it said in a statement Friday.
The Phoenix, Arizona, power-management chip supplier will locate the lab in a building owned by Hisense in Qingdao, home to China’s most famous brewery. The lab will develop products for Chinese customers, ON said.
Applied Materials, of Santa Clara, California, held an opening ceremony in Xi’an, China, for its new 106,000 square foot facility for developing chip manufacturing equipment that uses 200-millimeter silicon wafers, as well as the company’s most advanced metrology and inspection products.
The new centers highlight faster growth in foreign investment in China’s chip sector. U.S. memory chipmaker Micron Technology Inc. announced the opening of a new chip factory in China earlier last week, and Intel Corp. is widely expected to announce a major chip plant investment in the country this week.
Intel Corp. CEO Paul Otellini will hold a news conference in Beijing today for a “major announcement” this week. While the company remains tight-lipped about the details, Otellini’s planned visit follows closely on the heels of a Chinese Government announcement that Intel has been given approval to build a US$2.5 billion chip fabrication plant in Dalian, on China’s northeastern coast.
Reports that Intel would open a Chinese fabrication plant, called a “fab” in chip industry parlance, have circulated for several years. But the Bush administration’s tightening of controls on technology exports to China in recent years has led many analysts to conclude that such a move might be challenged in Washington.
The Chinese commission’s announcement said that the approved plant would have a monthly capacity of 52,000 chips and would use 90-nanometer technology.
Intel’s move to increase its presence in China signals the growing need of chipmakers to find new ways to meet the demand for chips for mobile phones, MP3 players and personal computers. Many of Intel’s largest customers do their manufacturing in Asia, including Dell.
Intel already has two assembly and test sites in China, along with two research and development centers, employing about 5,000 people.
Asia is Applied Materials’ most important market, accounting for 65 percent of orders received by the company during the first quarter of its 2007 fiscal year. Taiwan accounted for 24 percent of new orders, South Korea, 19 percent and Japan, 12 percent. The Chinese mainland and Southeast Asia together accounted for 10 percent of its new orders.
Although the mainland accounted for a smaller portion of sales than Taiwan, South Korea and Japan, many analysts see it as the market with the biggest growth potential in the future.
(SD-Agencies)
