Mannerisms

For many a year the Scottish authorities pursued a policy of pouring money over companies which set up chip fabs in Scotland.

Motorola Semiconductors had very large grants over the years, NEC built two fabs in Scotland, both now closed, DEC and International Power Semiconductors built subsidized fabs, now closed, Hynix was going to build a heavily subsidised fab before it was hit by a collapse in the DRAM market and pulled out.

The argument of the Scottish authorities for spending all the grant and soft loan money was that the fabs would seed technology activity in the area. They never did. And when other places got cheaper, that's where the investment went.

While the Scottish authorities pursued their chase of foreign multinationals, wise heads advised that it would be a much better policy to invest in Scotland's own entrepreneurs to build home-grown Scottish companies.

That is the policy the Scottish authorities are now pursuing. Pity it's 25 years late, but better late than never.

Now the China authorities are embarking on just the same mistaken strategy as the Scottish. Instead of identifying and nurturing the talent in its own backyard, it is pouring money over Intel.

If this fab spawns a single start-up or seeds significant technological activity in China, it would be contrary to the experience of Scotland.

Being excited about having a trailing edge fab in China owned by a foreign multinational suggests that China hasn't figured out a winning semiconductor strategy yet.