SMIC's deal no flash in the pan

THE Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) has won orders from Spansion Inc to make and sell flash memory components in mobile phones.

SMIC, the biggest made-to-order chip maker in the Chinese mainland, announced this yesterday in a statement.

Nasdaq-listed Spansion, previously a joint venture between AMD and Fujitsu, will transfer 65-nanometer technology to SMIC on 12-inch wafers, according to the statement. This technology will allow the Shanghai-based SMIC to produce smaller chips with more features at lower costs.

Neither company provided costings for the deal.

Spansion, which has a factory in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, currently produces about 200 million chips a year in China, of which 150 million are exported.

The remaining 50 million are sold to handset makers in China, including Nokia Oyj and Motorola Inc.

"SMIC has made great strides in anticipating the growing flash memory market. With China's consumer electronics market comes the opportunity to create and nurture the growth of various flash memory services and markets," said Richard Chang, SMIC's president and chief executive.

The booming domestic handset market in China will fuel the demand for memory chips for stored programs, pictures, video and music in phones, industry insiders said.