U.S. semiconductor giant Intel Corp said on Thursday it was setting up facilities to assemble and test Pentium 4 chips at its Shanghai plant, but has no immediate plans to set up a wafer fab in China.
"What we are now seeing is assembly and test technology and that is taking wafers and cutting them into individual chips, assembling them and then testing them here," Intel CEO Craig Barrett told a news conference.
Intel said the new facility for the Pentiums, built on 0.13 micron technology, would be completed by the end of this year and the microprocessors bearing "Made in China" stamps would be produced in the first half of 2003.
Intel currently makes its chips in the United States and Ireland then ships them to be assembled and tested in the Philippines, Malaysia and Costa Rica, company officials said.
Barrett said he expected output at the Shanghai facility, which Intel poured $302 million into last September on top of an initial $198 million investment, to match the three other plants, though that might require some time.
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