by 
SHANGHAI — Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (“SMIC”, NYSE: SMI and HKSE: 981), China's leading foundry, today announced an agreement to invest in Brite Semiconductor, a Shanghai-based IC design and turnkey service company. The agreement allows Brite to provide customers with complete semiconductor design and manufacturing solutions based upon SMIC's leading foundry and IP technology. Value-added services include application-specific architecture and RTL design, leading-edge physical design, and full productization services including testing and packaging services through a well-established network. This collaboration provides a complete solution, which integrates IC design and manufacturing processes allowing customers to focus more on product and market development.
“As a leading ASIC company, our backend engineers have maintained a 100% silicon success record across various technologies and with challenging designs such as a 100M gate wireless networking chip announced earlier this year,” said Charlie Zhi, President & CEO of Brite Semiconductor. “In addition, we recently collaborated with SMIC on 40nm design flow development including tapeout of a 40nm ASIC. A closer partnership with SMIC allows us to provide our customers with the complete services, advanced technologies, and low costs needed to fuel their growth.”
“Open-Silicon founded Brite Semiconductor to provide custom silicon customers another way to access leading edge technology and engineering expertise. Watching the company grow through strong partnerships, like the one with SMIC, has shown that offering a network of integrated services and silicon solutions best meets those customers' needs,” said Naveed Sherwani, CEO and president, Open-Silicon. “Continuing as a Brite board member as it further establishes itself in the marketplace will also prove beneficial to Open-Silicon.”
“Not all of our customers were able to use SMIC technology due to the accelerated migration to advanced nodes with challenges of availability and integration of IP in the design process,” said Chris Chi, Senior Vice President and Chief Business Officer of SMIC. “Brite will play a critical role to enable our customers to use SMIC's technology and IP warehouses.”
{complink 12815|Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC)}
{complink 12840|Brite Semiconductor Inc.}
Vietnam is following the path of HK, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea. I agree to you Barbara that Vietnam has a lot of things to focus in order to compete. I went to Vietnam last March, I would say the government is really working hard in infrastructure and IT. The young people of Vietnam is really eager to learn the english language, for them they see it as a competitive edge once they look for work. Some of the IT and electronic companies already moved to Vietnam for cheaper labor cost. Intel closed their operations in the Philippines 2-4 years ago and moved it to Vietnam – since labor cost is much cheaper with less labor issues.
When we considering the potential growth of the electronic industry, apart from Vietnam surely we have to consider other countries like Taiwan, Malaysia, Korea etc. In this countries, the availability of skilled manpower is very high and Labour cost is also very less. The economic growths of these countries are near about 10-15% annually & their markets are opened for globalization. The only thing is industry is not exploring these resources effectively.
I don't disagree about Vietnam's potentials. The country is being positioned by many as an alternative manufacturing center to China. However, Vietnam remains an unknown to many in the West with regard to its viability as a manufacturing location. For now, many in the high-tech world will not really treat Vietnam the way they treat China. It will therefore continue to contend with other Asian locations for the next few years and I don't see it matching China's heft in the market.
May be the vietnam should invite the great leaders of Foxconn and request them to build electronic manufacturing factories all over the country. Foxconn is number one EMS company leading all other EMS companies in big margin in terms of gross profit margin.
Barbara, Vietnam probably won't grow into a major rival to China in the electronics supply chain but it is well positioned to get some of the overflow from China as well as benefit from any disruptions at its much bigger Asian rival. This is already noticeable from the action of some major players in China. Foxconn, for instance, is probably the biggest private sector employer today in China and most of its production is for the electronics industry. Yet, Foxconn is at the moment building one of its mega manufacturing cities in Vietnam to “spread the risk.”
Earlier this year, there were reports Foxconn had plans to invest up to $5 billion in Vietnam. The company may accelerate this move, following the problems it has had in recent months in China. This won't necessarily mean Vietnam will be the new China but it will definitely get a piece of the action.
I read today that Foxconn has a facility in Vietnam and there is a labor shortage there. Hadn't expected to hear that–maybe they will expand
Barbara, I was about to point out availability of workers as a major headache for companies interested in manufacturing products in Vietnam. The country has the land and is updating its infrastructure to support manufacturers, both local and foreign, but it may not be able to find the workers they need to run their operations.
The slightest hint of labor shortages could hurt Vietnam at a time it needs to let investors know they will get China-style low-cost wages and adequate supply of workers.
The slightest hint of labor shortages could hurt Vietnam at a time it needs to let investors know they will get China-style low-cost wages and adequate supply of workers.
Absolutely agree with this… to me, that's a very bad sign that there are ALREADY labor shortage issues.
Anyhow, I personally don't foresee Vietnam emerging as a power-player. I don't believe they are capable of providing the incentives, infrastructure, and labor force that places like China were able to supply in the past.
Besides, I think when looking for alternative places for investment, Mexico and South America are far more attractive at the moment. Why not attempt to exit Southeast Asia entirely and potentially worry about fewer logistical issues long-term?