500 jobs in new Singapore wafer fab

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SOITEC SA, which supplies the silicon for chips to power Microsoft's X-box game console, says it will invest about 350 million euros ($707.17 million) to build a new plant in Singapore to prepare for expected rising demand.
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The company, based in Bernin in the French Alps, will also raise production of engineered silicon wafers at its site in France and take part in a 170 million-euro research project, Soitec said in a statement early today.
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Soitec is the dominant supplier of silicon wafers with an insulated conductive layer on top, which allows faster data speeds and lower power use.
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Customers including Advanced Micro Devices and Motorola use the Soitec substrates to make their most advanced semiconductors, used to run electronics such as computers and mobile phones.
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"To meet anticipated rising demand from chip-makers worldwide, including Asian foundries, we are further bolstering our global production capacity with a new production plan in Singapore," Soitec chief executive officer Andre-Jacques Auberton-Herve said in the statement.
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Production at the Singapore plant is scheduled to start in the middle of 2008, increasing over a two-year period in line with demand, Soitec said.
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Final capacity will be about a million wafers a year, and the plant is expected to employ about 500 people by 2009, according to the French company. ? bloomberg