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NEC Electronics Corp has unveiled plans to reorganize its manufacturing facilities in Japan, aiming to improve efficiency in semiconductor development and production, and to promote synergy between manufacturing companies and business units.

The reorganization involves realigning six of its manufacturing facilities to better support the firm’s three core business units.

Also, NEC Electronics aims to strengthen collaboration between its manufacturing companies by aligning them directly with its three business units: Discrete & IC, Microcomputer (MCU), and System-on-Chip (SoC).

The NEC Kansai Ltd front-end processing plant and the NEC Fukui Ltd back-end processing plant (which have about 2300 and 850 staff, respectively) will also be integrated, and serve as the main manufacturing facility for compound semiconductor devices (as well as power management devices and display drivers) for the Discrete & IC business unit.

Also, the NEC Kyushu Ltd and NEC Yamaguchi Ltd front-end processing plants and the NEC Semicon Package Solutions Ltd back-end processing plant (which have about 2200, 1200 and 1500 staff, respectively) will be integrated into one company, which will be the flagship manufacturing facility for the MCU business.

NEC Electronics reckons that, as a result of the mergers, the MCU and Discrete & IC business units will have the benefit of ‘seamless’ front-end and back-end manufacturing capabilities, helping to improve quality management, reduce costs, bring added value to products, and improve profitability.

NEC Electronics is also transferring leading-edge silicon development and prototyping functions from its Sagamihara manufacturing plant (which has a production capacity of 2000 300mm wafers per month) to a new location on the premises of NEC Yamagata Ltd (NEC Electronics’ most advanced manufacturing subsidiary) by March 2009, allowing a seamless continuation from product development to manufacturing for the System-on-Chip (SoC) business unit . Most of the 700 or so staff at the 300mm line in Sagamihara will be transferred to Yamagata, the site of the recently announced 32nm joint development in Yokohama, or NEC Electronics’ headquarters in Kawasaki.

NEC Electronics says that the realignment of the above six manufacturing companies into a three-pronged model is expected to occur in April.

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