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Technology Stocks : Applied Materials No-Politics Thread (AMAT) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (3805)	10/31/2002 8:29:17 AM
From: Jeffrey D	Respond to of 25522

More fabs going up in China. Jeff << eetimes.com Discussions of more China fabs reported By Mike Clendenin EE Times October 30, 2002 (5:40 p.m. EST) SHANGHAI, China — China's second pure-play foundry, Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp., will begin installing equipment for 0.25-micron production next month in order to start pilot runs in January. And reports this week indicate that the Chinese government is looking to interest investors in other mainland fab projects. As early as March, Grace Semiconductor (GSMC) hopes to begin shipping products to customers Oki Electric Industry Co. Ltd. and Silicon Storage Technology Inc., both of which have investments in the foundry. At year's end, in the fab's first phase, the facility will be able to churn out 20,000 wafers per month, said Nasa Tsai, an executive at GSMC. "We will move to 0.18-micron mass production in 2003 and 0.13-micron mass production in 2004," he said. The fab has come a long way from just a year ago, when it was little more than a muddy landscape once occupied by farmers. Workers are putting the final touches on the gleaming steel and glass manufacturing facility, just as others like it spring up nearby. Across the road from GSMC, Shanghai Belling is nearing completion of a massive 8-inch wafer fab. Down the street, a test and packaging facility, partly funded by Via Technologies Inc., is also going up, and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC) is within view. Although there is a widening gap in China between chip demand and chip supply, most of GSMC's orders will come from overseas. "Local design houses for the first several years will not be significant for revenue — maybe only 10 percent at most," Tsai said. But he said he is optimistic that the situation will improve. After attending a recent design conference in China, Tsai was surprised at the number of design houses already established. "We have more and more design engineers coming back here from overseas, and they bring experience. So there should be some upside," he said. Like SMIC, GSMC is sourcing most of its senior talent from overseas, including the United States and Taiwan. Its chief technologist was drafted from Intel Corp., where she had worked for more than a decade. SMIC's top technologist also comes from Intel. China is relying on such talent to accelerate its effort to become a global semiconductor manufacturing center. The Chinese government has ambitious plans for its two highest-profile cities, Shanghai and Beijing. Shanghai and its surrounding area are already home to several fab projects, and Beijing is rushing to catch up. Investment discussions Earlier this week, local press quoted Liang Sheng, vice president of the Beijing Semiconductor Industry Association, as saying the Beijing government was talking with two groups, spearheaded by U.S. companies, about investing in fab projects. Sheng, who also heads the Beijing Municipal Economic Commission, reportedly said talks were ongoing with foreign companies regarding construction of a 6-inch-wafer gallium arsenide plant, which could be used to make discrete components for mobile phones, a burgeoning market in China. The companies were not named, and it was unclear whether the projects were new or already announced. Last year, Huaxia Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. started construction in Beijing on an 8-inch wafer foundry that will specialize in analog and power ICs. The fab is a joint venture among Beijing-based steel giant Shougang Group, the Beijing city government and two U.S.-based design houses, Alpha and Omega Semiconductor Inc. and Joshua Semiconductor Inc. Beijing is also the headquarters of another Shougang-backed chip venture, called Shougang NEC Electronics Co. Ltd., which focuses on logic chips and DRAMs.