10/03/2008 13h42
Symetrix to invest US$ 150 million
Gazeta Mercantil - 10/03/2008
American chip manufacturer Symetrix will have the first memory factory and should be the second one to begin the production of semiconductors - after the Excellence Center in Advanced Electronic Technology (Ceitec) - in more than a decade in the Country. Today the Country only makes the encapsulation of chips, but does not manufacture them. Yesterday the company announced the creation of a joint-venture with the Brazilian Encalso-Damha group, called Symetrix Systems, to be installed in São Carlos, in the interior of São Paulo. The unit, which will consume investments of US$ 150 million in the first three years, with the possibility of later expansion to up to US$ 1 billion. Founded in the 1980's by businessman Carlos Paes de Araujo, Symetrix decided to expand its work for Brazil after the federal government chose the sector of semiconductors - which today are imported - as one of the priorities for the Country's development, even as a way to diminish its negative weight in the trade balance. In the beginning of this year, Symetrix even announced that the factory would be opened in Rio de Janeiro, which would have been chosen after evaluations also in São Paulo and Pernambuco. The focus of the unit will be, at first, to meet the domestic market with memory chips of the "electric-iron" kind, used in subway and bus tickets and for animal traceability, for example, said the joint-venture's commercial director Ricardo Castello Branco. The factory, which will start being built in the second semester of 2009 and should be ready in the middle of 2011, is expected to start activities with the capacity to produce 100 million chips per year. "It is approximately the volume of the Brazilian market today. Having a factory here Brazil would not have to import chips. We will have price and quality to compete with products from the Asia", said Castello Branco in telephone interview to the Reuters. As incentives for the investment he mentioned the federal government's project to create an electronic ID, by which the identity cards will be replaced by cards with chips with the data of the citizens, which today are distributed in several documents. The factory will initially use imported silicon discs (wafers) for the production of memory chips. The local production of the wafers depends on the Brazilian market, said the executive. "The Brazilian market still does not justify an investment of this size", he added.
