National Semiconductor Corp will build its first plant in China, becoming the latest chipmaker to expand in an estimated US$10 billion market where demand for chips grows by about a third every year.
National Semiconductor, which sells about 45 percent of its computer chips to companies like Samsung Electronics Co in Asia, will spend as much as US$200 million over the next five years to build and staff the plant in eastern China's Jiangsu Province to test, assemble and package chips, the company said. Construction will begin in November, with the opening scheduled for 2004.
The Santa Clara, California-based company joins rival chipmakers like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) in boosting investment in the world's third-biggest semiconductor market.
China's annual chip production is projected to reach 20 billion chips by 2005, with demand for more than 70 billion chips, according to technology industry ministry estimates.
"China's personal-computer market is expected to surpass Japan in sales within two to three years," said Shen Lin, who tracks computer sales at International Data Corp, a consultant firm in Beijing. "Computer sales increase at 10 percent every year and at least 5 percent every quarter." China is considered a "huge emerging market" in which most of its population hasn't adopted much technology, National Semiconductor spokesman Jeff Weir said in an interview.
China now imports nine out of every 10 computer chips it uses.
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