Freescale opens China-based design center to drive 3G mobile technologies

By Colleen Taylor, Contributing Editor -- Electronic News, 10/26/2007

Expanding its operations in China, Freescale Semiconductor Inc. announced this week the opening of a new design center in Chengdu that will focus on 3G TD-SCDMA mobile technology.

In a statement made Thursday, Freescale's top brass minced no words in expressing enthusiasm for the Chinese market. "Asia represents the single greatest growth opportunity for our business," Michel Mayer, Freescale chairman and CEO, said in a statement. "It is important that we maintain strategic operations close to our customers. There is abundant engineering and business talent here, and we are investing in these resources to serve our substantial customer base and support our aggressive growth plan for the region."

Indeed, Freescale is no newcomer to the country: The Austin, Texas-based embedded semiconductor maker has maintained operations in China since 1992, and purports to be the first U.S.-based corporation to establish a semiconductor manufacturing facility in the nation and the first company to set up a joint-venture integrated circuit design center.

Engineers at the new Chengdu design center will work in RF, DSP and communication processing. Expected to employ 100 engineers by the end of 2009, the center will be the main driver of Freescale's TD-SCDMA technologies.

Freescale is by no means alone in its interest in expanding in China. Earlier this year, Motorola Inc., which spun-off Freescale in 2006, announced it had inked contracts worth $394 million with China Mobile Communications Corp. (CMCC), China's leading telecommunications provider, for GSM network expansion. And this week, Singapore-based test and packaging service provider STATS ChipPAC Ltd. announced the grand opening of a second 371,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Shanghai, and Sunnyvale, Calif.-based pure-play flash memory maker Spansion Inc. announced a partnership with Shanghai-based wafer foundry Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp.