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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (41260)	1/3/2001 5:30:20 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 70976

China seeks to challenge Taiwan foundries By Sunray Liu EE Times (01/03/01 16:25 p.m. EST) BEIJING — China hopes to challenge neighboring Taiwan's foundry supremacy with a batch of foundries planned for two technology parks. An 8-inch, 0.25-micron foundry launched this week at a new government-industry "microelectronics industry base" at the Badachu Science and Technology Park is expected to be the first of as many as eight production lines here, and a parallel effort is under way at a technology park in Shanghai. A government-industry partnership formed the venture at Badachu's new North China Microelectronic Industry Base. The partners in Beijing Huaxia Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (HSMC) are Shougang Group, a steel and iron maker here; the Beijing municipal government; Alpha and Omega Semiconductor Inc. (AOS; Sunnyvale, Calif.); and Joshua Semiconductor Inc. The initial investment totals $1.34 billion. The U.S. investors said their partnership with HSMC was sped by swift approval of the foundry project by all government agencies. HSMC received fast-track approval for all required licenses, including one for the purchase of 200,000 square meters (49 acres) of land. The partners plan to establish another 8-inch, 0.25-micron fab by 2002. Annual sales from the two 0.25-micron production lines are expected to total about $600 million, Shougang president Zhu Jimin said. HSMC plans to build as many as six other fabs by 2010 at a total investment of $10 billion. One will be a 6-inch production line with a monthly 30,000 wafer capacity. Other lines will use 8- or 12-inch technology with monthly capacities as high as 300,000 wafers. A packaging facility is also planned. The partners said their foundry business will focus on analog and other semiconductors, with an eye toward challenging Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Inc. as the top analog foundry. With all products slotted for export initially, overseas design houses will be the primary customers. HSMC will provide analog ICs, mixed-signal chips and electric-component ICs as well as digital IC and flash memory. Local design houses will be HSMC's eventual partners as homegrown businesses increasingly master analog and digital semiconductor design. Amplifiers, data converters, interface chips, RF ICs and sensors will be major product categories under HSMC's plan. Target markets include telecommunications, computers, automotive electronics and consumer electronics. Submicron technologies and equipment will be supplied by overseas vendors. Mike Chang, president and chief executive of Alpha and Omega Semiconductor, will head technical operations. Chang, a former manager of semiconductor development at General Electric, also served as executive vice president of Siliconix before joining AOS last year. At Siliconix, Chang was responsible for overseeing wafer production and technology as well as IC development. The two 6-inch fabs under his supervision were said to have generated more than $400 million in revenue per year for Siliconix. Chang acknowledged that the 0.25- micron technology "will not be the latest one for digital chips" but said it will meet the needs of a broad base of customers looking to to implement their chip designs. Chang predicted that HSMC will achieve its production goals in five years. He said his team expects to announce a technology breakthrough soon. All HSMC engineers will hold stock in the company. The fast-growing foundry business was a driving force behind the partnership. Dozens of analog and digital IC design houses are searching for new manufacturing capacity not controlled by rivals. A spokesman for HSMC said that many analog design houses are seeking ties with the new foundry and that some even hope to invest in the foundry in order to acquire processing capacity for their designs. Representatives from several design houses accompanied AOS executives on a recent visit to the Badachu research park. Shanghai also playing Before HSMC's founding, Shanghai Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. (GSMC) broke ground for a new plant at Zhangjiang Science Park in Shanghai. GSMC is a joint venture of international investors from China, Japan, South Korea and the United States. Some of the investors have strong ties to Taiwan and bring their technological and management experience with them. With a total investment of $1.63 billion, GSMC is targeting both the semiconductor and foundry markets in and outside China. The joint venture has broad support within the government: Jiang Mianheng, son of Chinese president Jiang Zemin, represented the Chinese Academy of Science at GSMC's opening ceremony. With a production capacity of 50,000 8-inch wafers per month, the company will span the full reach of the semiconductor business. Its front-end businesses will include manufacturing, designing, packaging and testing of wafers. It will also develop, design and produce ICs and will manufacture, test and seal photomasks. GSMC will initially use 0.25-micron and finer production technology. It plans to produce memory (DRAM, SRAM and flash), central processing units, monolithic microprocessors and gate matrix circuits. Applications will include computers, network and communications equipment, consumer electronics and IC cards. Pilot production is scheduled to commence in first quarter 2002. Subject 50522