NXP fab wins reprieve from closure

MUNICH, Germany – ICN6, the six-inch wafer fab at Nijmegen, The Netherlands, belonging to NXP Semiconductors BV, has won a reprieve from closure due to the strong demand.

Speaking at the Electronica exhibition here Rick Clemmer, CEO of NXP, has said that the company has been capacity constrained on some product types in the third quarter, such as embedded flash microcontrollers, although this was down to limitations at SSMC, NXP's joint-venture fab in Singapore. Clemmer said that many of those capacity constraints had now been lifted and that investment going into the Singapore, an $80 million investment in 2010, would increase capacity in 2011.

At the same time a 5-inch production line known as ICN5 has been kept in production for an extra couple of quarters beyond its previous scheduled close in the second quarter of 2010. ICN6, which was scheduled to close in mid-2011, has won a reprieve, said Clemmer.

There had been a plan to move equipment to a Chinese to help equip an 8-inch wafer fab but discussions have broken down, Clemmer told EE Times. "The plant is fully depreciated and has an excellent cost structure, so we've pushed that plan out for two or three years." Clemmer said he still planned to use a Chinese partner to help close the plant, but staff working at ICN6 had vowed to him that their competitive cost structure would make that a hard decision for him to take.