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MediaTek’s S$250m injection boosts local semicon sector

SINGAPORE — The Republic’s semiconductor industry, which has seen challenging times lately, has received a new lease of life in the form of a S$250 million commitment from Taiwanese firm MediaTek.

SINGAPORE — The Republic’s semiconductor industry, which has seen challenging times lately, has received a new lease of life in the form of a S$250 million commitment from Taiwanese firm MediaTek.

The fabless semiconductor company, which yesterday opened its new innovation centre in one-north, intends to use the investment to expand its research and development (R&D) operations here over the next six years, focusing on creating products to power Internet of Things (IoT) devices for consumer, medical and industrial usage.

The money will also be used to build advanced integrated circuit design capabilities in high speed Central Processing Unit and Graphics Processing Unit — requirements for smartphones, tablets and smart TVs.

MediaTek has already invested S$180 million in its R&D facility here over the past 10 years. The new financial commitment will help it create more than 100 R&D jobs, making it the largest integrated circuit design centre in Singapore with more than 300 engineers, it said at its 10th anniversary celebrations yesterday.

MediaTek’s expansion plans, along with other investments this year from firms such as Realtek and International Rectifier, signals that Singapore remains globally competitive in the semiconductor area, said Economic Development Board (EDB) chairman Leo Yip.

He also said the electronics industry here will continue to grow despite recent signs of weakness.

In April, the semiconductor sector — which accounts for 20.2 per cent of total manufacturing — registered a surprise 9.4 per cent contraction in output due to what the EDB called a “one-off drop, attributed to a single company and for reasons specific to the company”.

This sparked speculation of a plant closure or a relocation, which is expected to have a lingering effect on the industry’s performance.

In line with this, output in the semiconductor sector continued to fall by 6.4 per cent on-year in May, while overall electronics production dropped 7.5 per cent.

“The electronics industry … is expected to grow beyond the one-off decline this year,” said Mr Yip.

“(It) attracted more than S$16 billion in fixed asset investments over the past three years. When these investments are fully realised, they are expected to create 7,700 skilled jobs,” he said, adding that companies are looking to capture growth from new areas propelled by mobility, IoT and cloud computing.

Beyond boosting the local semiconductor industry, MediaTek’s investment will also go some way in helping Singapore in its efforts to become the world’s first smart nation.

Mr Yip pointed out that MediaTek will join companies such as Panasonic, Intel Mobile Communications and Philips, which are also investing in building IoT capabilities here.

Mr Andrew Chang, corporate vice-president of MediaTek, said the company would work with local firms to produce smart nation solutions.

“We will strengthen local enterprise capabilities and enable more ideas to be carried out. We intend for the local companies to adopt our open platform and work together with the Government on projects,” he said, adding that a big part of such IoT efforts will be finding new ways to increase power efficiency while maintaining high levels of performance.

The first industry that MediaTek — the largest fabless semiconductor company in Asia — will work on is healthcare, as Singapore is already doing well in this area, he said, adding that other possible areas included energy-saving applications for buildings.

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