
Silex spending $300 million on MEMS fab in Beijing
The plan to build a fab in Beijing has been on record since Silex was acquired by Hong Kong investment holding company GAE Ltd. in 2015 (see China buys Swedish MEMS foundry, builds fab).
The Chinese fab, with a cleanroom of 9,000 square meters is intended to act as MEMS foundry running 200mm-diameter wafers. Manufacturing is expected to start there in the first quarter of 2019.
The Beijing facility is intended to run a smaller product mix compared with Silex’s fab in Jarfalla, Sweden. R&D and smaller scale production will continue to be done in Jarfalla while large volume production will transfer to Beijing.
Jarfalla is also receiving additional investment with $50 million being spent there to add equipment and cleanrooms to expand production capacity, Silex said.
Silex has 160 employees and annual sales of more than $50 million. The expanded operations in China are expected to require a similar-sized workforce, Silex said.
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