Brazil has announced plans to build a semiconductor manufacturing cluster in the state of Minas Gerais that will turn out analog and mixed-signal wafers.
The Minas Gerais Technological Park will go up on 990 square acres that Brazilian officials hope will soon attract foreign satellite facilities while at the same time building up Brazil's domestic chip industry.
"For strategic reasons many companies want to have semiconductor manufacturing located in multiple economic and geographic zones," observed Wolfgang Sauer, co-founder of Companhia Brasileira de Semiconductores (CBS). "A Brazilian semiconductor industry offers a real alternative to the concentration of semiconductor manufacturing in Asia."
CBS will anchor the project, which will be open for business in 2007 and run high-voltage CMOS, Bipolar, BiCMOS, and other specialized processes.
Copyright 2005 by United Press International
