Hyundai Electronics Industries Co Ltd finally confirmed that it really has chosen Dunfermline, Scotland for its new memory chip plant and plans a two-stage construction project valued at $3.6bn. The project’s first phase is a $1.55bn wafer fabrication plant that should create 1,000 jobs; the second phase adds a planned $2.1bn wafer fab and another 1,000 jobs. The two fabs will be on the same 150-acre site, and the first is expected to be operational by the end of 1998. It will produce 64M-bit memory chips, later moving on to 256Ms, processing 8 wafers at a rate of 30,000 a month. The technology to be applied in the second wafer fab is still under development. Scotland was chosen for its skilled labor, a cost-competitive operating environment, a well-developed electronics infrastructure, and close proximity of some of our major customers, it said.
