National Semiconductor Corp, Santa Clara and Sierra Semiconductor Corp of San Jose have joined forces with the state-owned Singapore Technology Corp to invest $40m building a plant to fabricate six inch wafers in the Singapore Science Park. The new venture, to be called Chartered Semiconductor Pte, will be 74% owned by the Singapore body, 17% by Sierra, 9% by NatSemi, and will do custom CMOS chips using Sierra’s triple technology process for combining analogue, digital and electrically-erasable circuits on the same chip. NatSemi is providing process technology and training, and has agreed to buy much of the output of the new company, which looks to have annual sales of $50m.