AUSTIN, Tex. -- The thinning of Motorola Inc.'s semiconductor workforce is underway as promised in late December. The company has internally announced the closing of an advanced IC assembly and testing operation in Austin along with the shutdown of a backend chip-packaging plant and eight-inch wafer fab in Sendai, Japan, as part of an "asset light" strategy to reduce costs worldwide.
Earlier this week, Motorola announced it would close its Hong Kong chip assembly and testing facility as part of the 2002 cutbacks, which will eventually eliminate 4,000 jobs from the company's Semiconductor Products Sector. Last month, Motorola corporate executives disclosed plans to make those cuts in 2002 along with the elimination of an additional 5,400 jobs in the company's communications and equipment product groups. Motorola plans to outsource 50% of its CMOS products under the "asset light" strategy (see Dec. 19 story).
The phase-out of the four chip plants--in Austin, Japan, and Hong Kong--"represents all of the closings being planned this year," said a spokesman for Motorola's semiconductor group in Austin. "These four plants represent about 2,000 of the 4,000 jobs being eliminated this year, with the rest coming from other operations than manufacturing."
Motorola plans to operate just eight wafer fabs by 2003 compared to 29 fabs in 1997. The company now has nine fabs, the spokesman said.
In Sendai, Motorola will close a chip packaging and test plant and an 8-inch wafer fab, called TSC8. Products produced by the 15-year-old TSC8 fab will be transferred to three other Motorola frontend plants--one in Sendai, MOS12 in Chandler, Ariz., and MOS9 in East Kilbride, Scotland.
All of Motorola's own backend assembly and testing operations will be located in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and Tianjin, China, by 2003, said the company spokesman.
The new round of closings will shut down the assembly and test function of Motorola's BAT 1 facility, which has been performing wafer bumping, advanced IC assembly and final test of chips. A breakdown of jobs being eliminated in Austin and Senida was not yet available. About 700-to-800 jobs will be lost with the closing of the Hong Kong facility (see Jan. 8 story). --J. Robert Lineback
