The European Commission’s diktat that chips must be fabricated within the Community, and not just assembled, to count as European, (CI No 1,090) is focussing the minds of foreign chipmakers wonderfully: already Texas Instruments Inc has announced plans to make memory chips in Italy (CI No 1,091), now Fujitsu Ltd is reportedly ready to invest $100m or so in a European chip front-end, possibly on Wearside in the UK, and Hitachi Ltd and Toshiba Corp are expected to follow suit; Motorola Inc and NEC Corp already fabricate chips in Scotland.
