Feb 9 2005
Hitachi Chemical Co., Ltd. has decided to reinforce its semiconductor-related materials business in China by adding a new production base for epoxy molding compounds primarily for logic device applications, which is scheduled to start manufacturing in Suzhou City in Jiangsu Province. The new facility will be built and operated in Suzhou Industrial Park by Hitachi Chemical (Suzhou) Co., Ltd. which is to be established with capital of 10 million US dollars and a production capacity of 6,000 tons/year.
The Chinese semiconductor industry is growing rapidly. Until recent years, the industry was active with investments mainly from Japanese and Taiwanese companies for factories designed for fabrication process operations. The industry has now grown into one that many leading semiconductor enterprises from Japan, Europe, the U.S.A., Taiwan, Korea, etc. built large-scale factories one after another to provide wafer process and fabrication process materials. As an increasing number of Chinese companies are also entering the semiconductor manufacturing business, the Chinese market is expected to see ever-greater growth. Under these circumstances, for us to secure aggressive sales growth in the Chinese market, we have decided to have our own local production base in China, thereby enabling us to successfully meet local needs for timely delivery and dependable technical services.
Hitachi Chemical is presently manufacturing epoxy molding compounds at its Shimodate Works (Minami Yuki) (Yuki City, Ibaraki Prefecture) and Hitachi Chemical (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd. (Penang Province). When the new Chinese production facility is added, our total annual production capacity will reach a level of 30,000 tons. We intend to raise our current 20% (by our estimate) share of the Chinese market to more than 40% in 2010. With the new production base, we are accelerating efforts to expand in the electronic materials business in China.
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