RFMD establishes in-house packaging facility
RF Micro Devices of Greensboro, NC, a provider of RFICs for wireless communications, has established an assembly facility at its Beijing, China location to provide internal module packaging capabilities.
RFMD is aiming for the new assembly facility to be fully operational in the December 2004 quarter, and to contribute to earnings in calendar 2005. The facility will supplement existing assembly capacity, which RFMD says it currently sources from the world s leading assembly houses.
The company believes its assembly facilities will decrease manufacturing costs, provide for guaranteed assembly capacity, and enable reductions in cycle time.
In addition, RFMD thinks that housing the new assembly operations in its existing Beijing facility will significantly strengthen its position as a one-stop shop for semiconductor assembly, test and tape and reel.
RFMD expects the new facility will contribute to the company s continual gross margin improvement plan. Other recent initiatives include conversion from 4-inch to 6-inch GaAs wafers, ongoing test yield improvements, higher levels of integration, and its relationship with Jazz semiconductor.
"In our latest fiscal year, structural improvements we made throughout our supply chain enabled cycle time reductions of more than 40 percent, which helped us to meet incremental customer demand and improve inventory turns," said Jim Stilson, corporate vice president of operations, RFMD.
