Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co and IBM Co are among the buyers interested in National Semiconductor Corp’s South Portland, Maine fabrication plant, according to reports. Nat Semi said it was looking to sell a majority interest in the eight-inch wafer fabrication plant when it announced its decision to get out of the low-end processor market earlier this month, also putting sections of its Cyrix Corp business up for sale (CI No 3,655). Nat Semi invested some $830m in the plant, beginning work in November 1997 and opening the 575,000 square foot, 49-acre facility in June 1997. It originally used .35 micron process technology but was moving down to .25 micron. Its products were used for both PCs and telecommunications devices.
