US computer chip giant Intel Corp. said on Monday it will build a
US$2.5-billion semiconductor plant in Dalian, a port city in
northeast China's Liaoning Province.
The plant, to be located in a high-tech zone north of Dalian's
city proper, will become part of Intel's network of eight factories
worldwide that produce 300-millimetre integrated wafers after it
becomes operational in the first half of 2010.
Construction of the plant will start before the end of this
year, Intel said in a press release.
The new project will make Intel "one of the largest foreign
investors in China" and raise its total investment in the country
to nearly four billion US dollars, said Paul Otellini, Intel's
president and chief executive officer, at Monday's press conference
at the Great Hall of the People in central Beijing.
Intel has invested US$1.3 billion over the past two decades in
assembly, test and research and development facilities in China, he
said.
The company has assembly and test operations in the eastern
municipality of Shanghai and Chengdu in the southwest.
As one of the largest China-US cooperation projects in recent
years, the new plant will reinforce Intel's leading role in the
global semiconductor manufacturing industry while bolstering the
growth of China's integrated circuit industry, said Zhang
Xiaoqiang, vice director of the State Development and Reform
Commission.
The new plant will use 90-nanometer technology, an advanced
method of computer chip making that measures its work 90 billionths
of a meter.
Compared with the 200 mm integrated wafers that are prevalent on
the market now, the 300 mm wafers will provide chips with improved
performance of semiconductor components and cut costs. The
larger-sized wafers also use 40 percent less energy and water
during their production, Intel says.
The company has seven other factories producing 12-inch wafers
in the United States, Ireland and Israel.
The Dalian plant will help promote economic growth in China's
northeast, a former heavy industry base that has suffered a decline
following China's state sector reforms over the past decades, said
Xia Deren, mayor of Dalian.
The city government estimates the new plant provide about 1,700
jobs and the plant and the economic spin offs it creates in
training, logistics and other services, will be worth 120 billion
yuan (US$15.4 billion).
(Xinhua News Agency March 26, 2007)
