Motorola delays mass wafer production in China

BEIJING: U.S. telecommunications equipment maker Motorola Inc has delayed plans to begin mass wafer production in China to the second half of this year, a company spokeswoman said in Hong Kong. Motorola had said originally that mass production at its $1.9 billion semiconductor plant in the northern coastal city of Tianjin would begin in the first half of 2002.

That was the timetable the Chicago area-based company set in 2000 when it outlined plans to build the wafer fabrication plant in Tianjin, she said. "We've already updated the commencement date to the second half of this year," said the spokeswoman. A Motorola spokesman in Texas was quoted by Semiconductor Business News over the weekend as saying the downturn in the computer chip industry had caused the company to delay its original schedule.

Last month, at a meeting with investors in the United States, Motorola executives said the global market for semiconductors fell by 35 percent in 2001, but that a recovery had begun this year. The company expects its global money-losing semiconductor business to break even in the third quarter and show a profit in the fourth quarter.

Motorola says it is the biggest foreign firm in China by revenue. Its Tianjin plant has built a production line for eight-inch (20 cm) wafers using 0.18 micron technology, relatively advanced for semiconductor plants in China. The plant would produce mostly chips for cellular phones and other communications equipment and devices.

© Reuters