Micron planning its first factory in China

Micron Technology Inc. is currently in the process of planning its first factory in China and hopes to begin construction in the middle of next year, the company said Monday.

“Micron is in the process of factory selection in China,” said Charles Xu, a Shanghai-based spokesman for the company. “We are looking at five to six locations and we haven’t reached any conclusion on which is the final choice. We anticipate to short-list the candidate cities to two by the end of this year and, if everything goes smoothly, start construction in the middle of next year.”

The company is still working on precise plans for the factory although it’s main job will likely by assembly and testing of semiconductors, said Xu. Total investment in the factory is likely to be above $100 million, he said.

Micron currently has a memory design center in Shanghai but no production facilities in China. Its largest assembly and test operation in Asia is in Singapore. The plant is responsible for assembly and testing of memory devices produced at factories in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. The company’s Asian production facility is located in western Japan.

In August this year South Korea’s Hynix Semiconductor Inc. said it reached an agreement to construct a wafer fabrication plant (fab) to manufacture chips in Wuxi, China. The factory is expected to be completed during the second half of next year. China’s largest semiconductor maker is Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC), which produces chips under contract for a number of foreign companies.