Wafer Saw - - Diamond-edged blade cuts the finished wafer into individual die, at US chipmaker Micron Technology - - Besides a new plant in China, Micron has operations in 19 countries to provide design, manufacturing, and sales and support to customers on a worldwide basis. The close coordination of research, manufacturing, and support functions enables Micron to deliver high-quality products meeting our customers' demands while achieving low cost production through decreased manufacturing cycle times and increased yields. The Company has wholly owned wafer fabrication facilities in Boise, Idaho; Manassas, Virginia; Avezzano, Italy; Nishiwaki City, Japan; joint venture interest in fabrication operations at TECH Semiconductor in Singapore; wholly owned assembly and test operations in Boise, Idaho and Singapore; and memory module assembly operations in Boise, Idaho; Singapore; East Kilbride, Scotland; and Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. IM Flash Technologies (IMFT), Micron's joint venture with Intel, will be producing NAND flash at Micron's Virginia and Boise fabrication facilities, as well as at IMFT's facility in Lehi, UT which Micron contributed to the joint venture.

Top global chipmaker Intel, is expected to announce a decision about whether it will build a chip fabrication plant in China as soon as Monday, the Wall Street Journal reports today.

Intel has called a press conference for March 27th, in Beijing with Paul Otellini, its chief executive officer, who will discuss Intel's "commitment to China" among other things, according to an invitation for the event.

Intel already operates facilities in China that package and test chips. However, a fabrication plant, that builds chips on silicon wafers, would require a much bigger investment and could be a major step forward for China's chip-manufacturing capability. Intel now operates such factories in the US, Ireland and Israel.

A Chinese government agency last week said it had approved plans by Intel to build a $2.5 billion fabrication plant in Dalian, a north-eastern port city. The company has refused to comment on its plans since the government statement, while reiterating that it is interested in increasing its investment in China.

The Journal says that many electronics companies have chosen to locate facilities in China, to be closer to other companies that incorporate their products in finished goods as well as consumers there that represent a growing market for computers and other devices.

Micron Technology, Inc., a US maker of memory chips called DRAMs, for dynamic random-access memories, which has recently diversified into chips known as flash memory--through a joint venture with Intel--as well as chips that act as image sensors in products such as digital cameras, on Tuesday officially opened a new manufacturing facility in Xi’an, China. The facility, Micron’s first manufacturing facility in China, is designed for assembly and test operations for Micron’s semiconductor products, including dynamic random access memory, NAND flash memory and CMOS image sensors.

The facility is expected to be built-out by the end of 2008 at an investment of $250 million and support up to 2,000 employees. The plant is Micron’s second assembly and test facility in Asia, with its first being opened in Singapore in 1998. Additionally, Micron’s Xi’an facility will be one of the largest investments of the 860 foreign-invested companies operating in the Xi’an High Tech Zone in Shaanxi Province in Midwest China.