STMicroelectronics has emerged from the recession stronger and is investing in new capacity, according to the company’s top executives speaking in London this morning.
"A year ago our meeting in New York centred on the crisis and how we’d get out stronger than we went in", said ST CEO Carlo Bozotti, "today I can announce we did that."
COO Alain Dutheil said that 6,000 jobs had been lost during the crisis and fab utilisation had reached an all time low of 35%. However, the $1bn cost reduction programme had already saved costs of $750m, ST now has $2.8bn in cash and cash equivalents and the company is expecting its served available market to increase by 20% this year.
So ST is expanding fab capacity again. Crolles is moving to 3,200 300mm wafers a week; Agrate is expanding eight inch BCD capacity; Singapore is moving to 18,000 six inch wafers a day.
"Singapore produces 40% of our total silicon," said Dutheil, "it’s completely depreciated. For cost and productivity it’s the best plant by far in ST."
ST is currently outsourcing 15% of its wafers and intends to increase that to 20%. "We absolutely want to avoid the situation where we have to fire people when the market is going down", said Dutheil.