Intel Makes Investment in its China Factory

Intel Corp. has revealed its plan to invest $1.6 billion to upgrade its factory in the city of Chengdu in western China. The move by the chipmaker in extending its ties in the country is proving increasingly troublesome for some competitors in the U.S.

As part of the upgrade, Intel said it would bring its most advanced chip-testing technology to China. In exchange it will receive local and regional government support for construction.

"Deploying our newest advanced testing technology in China shows our commitment to innovating jointly with China," Intel EVP William Holt noted. "The fully upgraded Chengdu plant will help the Chinese semiconductor industry and boost regional economic growth."

The announcement comes three months after Intel purchased a minority stake in a government-controlled semiconductor company to jointly design and distribute mobile chips, an industry that China considers to be of strategic importance.

Intel's fortunes in China contrast with the travails of its rival, Qualcomm, which is expected to announce in the coming days a potentially record-breaking settlement with Chinese antitrust regulators.

China's investigation into Qualcomm, as well as a spate of recent probes against firms including Microsoft, have prompted an outcry from foreign business lobbies. They say the Chinese government is increasingly adopting strong-arm tactics to yield technology-sharing or other arrangements beneficial to domestic industry.

The government, meanwhile, has defended its regulatory scrutiny as even-handed. It has pointed to a history of Qualcomm and Microsoft facing similar antitrust probes in Western countries.

Analysts say there is a broad recognition that foreign companies must do more to stay in China's good graces.

"Intel's taking the approach that's appreciated by the Chinese government," Nomura analyst Leping Huang said. "These days if you want to make money in China, you have to invest in China."

TI to Open 300mm Wafer Bumping Facility in Chengdu, China

Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) announced it will expand its manufacturing capacity in Chengdu, China, with a 300mm wafer bumping facility. The addition of this manufacturing process in Chengdu further increases TI’s 300mm analog capacity and its ability to support customer demand.

TI announced the new operation in concert with an event celebrating the grand opening of its seventh assembly/test (A/T) facility. The 358,000 square-foot A/T facility was purchased from UTAC Chengdu Ltd. in December 2013 and is now qualified and in production using advanced quad-flat no-leads (QFN) packaging technology.

TI’s manufacturing investment in China began in 2010 with the opening of the company’s first wafer fabrication plant in Chengdu. TI extended its investment with the adjacent A/T facility, opening. TI will now further extend its operations in Chengdu with a 300mm wafer bumping facility on its Chengdu High-tech Zone (CDHT) campus.

“The CDHT has been a dynamic area of economic development in West China, offering a strong environment for investment and government service,” said Kevin Ritchie, senior vice president of TI’s Technology & Manufacturing Group. “We’re pleased to extend our 300mm manufacturing capabilities at our world-class Chengdu facility to further ensure continuity of supply to our customers and support their growth.”

Wafer bumping is a manufacturing process for advanced packaging technologies, which is completed prior to assembly. The process replaces wire bonding as the interconnection by applying solder, in the form of bumps, or balls, to a device at the wafer level. Nearly 40 percent of TI’s wafer production is manufactured using bump techniques.

This investment plan does not change TI’s capital spending forecast. The company continues to expect its capital spending levels to remain about 4 percent of revenue.

TI has served a broad array of customers in China for more than 27 years. In addition to its manufacturing footprint in Chengdu, TI has established 18 offices providing sales and applications support, four R&D centers and a product distribution center in Shanghai.

TI has manufacturing operations throughout the world, including the United States, Mexico, Germany, Scotland, China, Malaysia, Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines. Its 300mm operations include the industry’s first 300mm Analog wafer fab in Richardson, Texas as well as its DMOS6 wafer fab in Dallas and bump operations in the Philippines and Dallas.

SmartKem Announces New TFT Fabrication Facility

SmartKem, the leading supplier of high performance semiconductor materials for the manufacture of truly flexible displays and electronics, has announced the opening of a new thin-film-transistor (TFT) fabrication and testing facility at the company’s Manchester site – doubling the size of the company.

The expansion is set to provide comprehensive support to product development agreements, allowing partners to rapidly develop market-driven, flexible TFT-based products for applications in the display, touchscreen and sensor industries.

Together with the company’s organic synthesis technology and material formulation laboratories the center will offer complete turn-key support for its ground-breaking tru-FLEX technology platform in the development of flexible electronics applications. This will provide partners with additional services across the value chain from material synthesizes, formulation and validation of the technology in transistor, circuit or end product form.

The new facility offers TFT device modeling, device stack design and a complete TFT fabrication suite including coating and evaporation equipment as well as a comprehensive test suite for device and circuit characterization including a semi-automated probe station. This not only augments SmartKem's internal development work but importantly offers its customers comprehensive support in the rapid development of market driven flexible TFT-based products for application to the display, touchscreen and sensor industry.

The expansion and significant capital investment follows the recent Series A funding from a syndicate of leading investors including Finance Wales, BASF Venture Capital, Entrepreneurs Fund and Octopus Investments. Together with the creation of this new device facility expansion, SmartKem will also be increasing the size of its team by 30% with new members joining the synthesis, formulations and device technology groups.

Steve Kelly, Chief Executive of SmartKem, commented: “We are delighted with the speed with which we’ve managed to turn around the installation and commissioning of the new device facility. This is the final piece of the development cycle to bring in-house and the timing could not be better. We are seeing positive traction in the market for flexible electronics across the board from our core market of flexible AMOLED and EPD backplane drivers as well as many new and exciting applications. With the combined market for flexible display and electronics set to top $50 billion in the next 5 years, we are in great shape to continue to supply SmartKem tru-FLEX into new products and satisfy the growing market demand.”

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