Motorola Inc, the world's second-largest maker of mobile phones, shut its semiconductor design unit in Taiwan as it moves work to China and India where wages for engineers are lower.
Motorola fired about 50 chip-design workers last week in Taiwan, Singapore and at a facility that will stay open in Hong Kong, spokeswoman Gloria Shiu said in a telephone interview from Beijing.
Schaumburg, Illinois-based Motorola will divide their work among operations in China, India and Australia.
Chipmakers including Texas Instruments Inc and Intel Corp have set up design centers in India to tap the 130,000 English-speaking graduates each year from about 250 engineering colleges.
STMicroelectronics NV, Europe's largest semiconductor maker, said last month it plans to spend US$100 million over the next five years to set up two more chip design centers in India.
"We've previously said we would consolidate some of our design work," Shiu said. "The work will now go to Hong Kong, Australia, India and China."
Motorola's chip unit in Taiwan focuses on micro-controllers, while the Singapore and Hong Kong centers design semiconductors used in cellular phones.
Motorola shares fell 2.3 percent to US$17.66 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading on Monday. The shares rose 62 percent last year.
The jobs transfer is a blow to Singapore's efforts to promote electronics development and design in the city state.
Motorola is set to move the work to India and China to lower its business costs and better meet the needs of its customers, Singapore's Today newspaper reported earlier. Motorola, which has been in Singapore for 30 years, employs 2,500 people involved in high-end manufacturing, research, development and software design, the paper said.
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