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Apple supplier Foxconn steps up semiconductor plans with deal to build a new base in Qingdao

  • This marks Foxconn’s latest semiconductor project in China after other chip-related development initiatives in Nanjing, Jinan and Zhuhai
  • The Qingdao semiconductor packaging and testing plant will focus on chips used on 5G and AI-based hardware products

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Qingdao, a major city in eastern Shandong province, is the latest location for the semiconductor supply chain being developed by Foxconn Technology Group across China. Photo: Shutterstock
Jane Zhang

Foxconn Technology Group, the world’s largest electronics contract manufacturer, is accelerating efforts to develop its own semiconductor supply chain in China, with a pact to build a new factory in Qingdao.

The Taipei-based company, formally known as Hon Hai Precision Industry, signed on Wednesday an agreement with the government of Qingdao, a major city in eastern Shandong province, to develop a semiconductor packaging and testing plant that it will co-finance with the state-backed Rongkong Group.

The new facility, which will start construction this year, will focus on the packaging and testing of application-specific integrated circuits used in 5G communications and artificial intelligence (AI) hardware products, according to Foxconn’s post in its official WeChat account on Thursday.

“Foxconn’s high-end semiconductor packaging and testing project is the core part of the chip design, manufacturing and application industry [supply] chain,” company chairman Liu Young-way was quoted as saying by local media on Thursday. “It has a leading role to open up the upstream and downstream [supply] chains, and accelerate the [domestic] industry’s development.”

The Qingdao plant is expected to start operations next year and reach its production target by 2025, according to the company’s WeChat post, without elaborating.

Foxconn did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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