Philips Semiconductor, a subsidiary of Philips Electronics North America Corp, yesterday opened a $30m extension to its chip manufacturing plant in Hamburg, Germany in a move to boost signal discrete semiconductor components capacity. The extension will produce six-inch wafers for the production of small signal discrete semiconductor components. Six-inch standard wafers enable the production of about twice as many discrete chips on a single wafer as the current four-inch standard. The small signal discrete semiconductors such as transistors, diodes and sensors have uses in application specific integrated circuits (ASICs) used in a variety of electronic products for the communication, automotive, multimedia and other industries. Philips expects demand for discrete semiconductors to rise in the future after the current slump and intends to make further similar investments to meet this demand, but is yet to lay out plans, said Navi Miglani, Philips’ Marketing Manager for Discrete Semiconductors.
