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Semiconductor giants consolidate in China

BEIJING - With the recovery of the global market, international semiconductor giants are consolidating their businesses in China, analysts said.

Fujitsu Microelectronics Co (FMC), a semiconductor firm exclusively owned by Japan's Fujitsu, has been founded and put into operation in Shanghai.

FMC will team up with local companies in wafer manufacturing, while leaving chip packaging and testing to Nantong Fujitsu, a neighboring joint venture of its parent company.

The German silicon giant Infineon Technologies AG recently founded an integrated circuit (IC) memory chip packaging and testing plant in Suzhou City, Jiangsu province. The plant will begin installing equipment from mid-2004 and will be put into operation in early 2005.

Infineon plans to invest up to US$1 billion in the new plant in the next ten years, whose maximum annual output will hit 1 billion chips.

IBM's Engineering and Technology Service Division (E&TS) decided to launch business in the mainland in October. E&TS aims to recruit some 400 clients, most of which are electronic component designing companies and domestic semiconductor plants with a 100 billion yuan or more investment.

And finally, Italy's ST Microelectronics will build a 12-inch wafer plant in the mainland in the next three to five years, according to Laurent Bosson, vice president in charge of ST's Manufacture Division.

Semiconductor chip sales in the Asia-Pacific region increased by 19.1 percent as compared with those in the same period last year, according to statistics provided by the US Semiconductor Industrial Association.

Furthermore, experts predict that China will become the largest and the fastest-growing semiconductor market by 2010.

(Asia Pulse/XIC)

Dec 5, 2003

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