IF recent developments are any indication, the semiconductor industry - estimated to register double-digit growth next year to cross US$100 billion in revenues worldwide - seems to be looking to Asia for answers.
In the last few days, new investments have been announced in Malaysia and Singapore. There are also signs that the Japanese, which dominate volume production, are turning to Asia to beat the rising yen.
Singapore has been assembling and testing computer chips for the past 20 years but has been facing increasing competition from neighbouring Malaysia, which is now the world's largest chip assembling and testing country.
In Singapore, Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing (CSM), part of the government-linked Singapore Technology Ventures, is said to be ready to commit up to US$650 million for what it said would be ''the latest state-of-the-art wafer fabrication plant in the world employing mini environment technologies''.
The joint venture would be the second advanced technology factory for making the basic material of computer chips in which the government has a stake.
The new CSM plant will use 0.5 micron technology, the latest in commercial production but an advertisement at the weekend did not indicate the final product.
Industry sources said the plant would make application-specific integrated circuits, and possibly sophisticated static random access memory (Sram) chips.