The projected plant will be equipped with a 200mm wafer fab that will produce CMOS image sensors, power management ICs and embedded flash. State-controlled banks will lend another $360 million, while the Chongqing government will put up about $200 million to build the fab, and then lease it to ProMOS. If things go well, ProMOS will eventually buy the facility, the company said.

"It's a good incentive for us to build the fab there. You want to spend your money on equipment, not the shell, so that you can quickly ramp up the fab," said Ben Tseng, vice president of sales and marketing at ProMOS.

The notion of getting governments to shoulder the burden of fab construction and equipment move-in was most recently used by Shanghai-based Semiconductor Manufacturing International Co. (SMIC). Last summer, it agreed to operate facilities in Chengdu and Wuhan that will be built by the governments there.

By: DocMemory
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