SHANGHAI -- In another major move to expand its semiconductor production base, IBM Corp. today (Thursday) announced plans to invest $300 million to build a chip packaging and systems manufacturing plant here.
The Shanghai-based plant, part of IBM Microelectronics' recently announced $5 billion worldwide investment plan (see Oct. 10 story), will be the company's first semiconductor production site in China.
It also marks the latest in a wave of significant chip-making ventures and investments in Shanghai, which is now considered China's microelectronics hub (see Oct. 5 story). A growing number of multinational companies have been scrambling to set up manufacturing plants in China for various reasons, including a possible fear of getting locked out of that booming market. By 2003 or so, in fact, the China government has dictated that local and foreign OEMs must procure a much larger percent of their components from manufacturing sites within that nation.
IBM's proposed plant--aimed to help the company's chip selling efforts in the booming China market--will produce some key and advanced technologies, including electronic cards for OEMs as well as organic packages based on the company's proprietary surface laminar circuitry (SLC) and HyperBGA technologies.
HyperBGA is a laminate ball grid array-based flip-chip carrier, which combines the advantages of various flip-chip attach packaging technologies with polytetrafluoroethylene-based laminates. This packaging technology is designed to improve signal integrity and distribution characteristics in a device. Developed in the mid-1980s, meanwhile, SLC is a surface-mount-like technology that increases the density of printed-circuit boards.
A spokesman for IBM said the company will break ground on the new chip-packaging plant in the first quarter of 2001. Production is slated for mid-2001, the spokesman said. In total, IBM will employ about 1,000 workers in the plant, he added.
IBM noted the plant would serve as a key manufacturing base for the company's advanced packaging technologies. "The establishment of the new packaging facility in Shanghai signifies a new phase in bringing advanced technology to China," said Henry Chow, chairman and chief executive of IBM Greater China Group.
IBM is no stranger in China. Today, IBM China has offices in eleven cities and operates eight joint venture companies in China. The IBM China Research Laboratory was established in Beijing in 1995.
Earlier this year, it also announced a joint venture with China Great Wall to make printed-circuit boards for one major OEM customer: Nokia.
IBM has also been on a major spending spree in its fast-growing microelectronics group. Earlier this month, for example, it announced plans to build the world's most advanced chip-making facility in East Fishkill, N.Y., which will include a 300-mm wafer fab to process ICs with 0.10-micron technology, copper interconnects, low-k dielectrics, and silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrates.
The 300-mm fab will cost $2.5 billion and is part of a $5 billion capital spending plan to expand IBM's Microelectronics Division worldwide. IBM officials said the $5 billion in investments covers advanced manufacturing projects through 2003.
--Mark LaPedus reporting from Silicon Valley
