March 2, 2001–Tokyo, Japan–Fujitsu Ltd. now has its new $43 million systems chip testing center in Aizu Wakamatsu up and running, consolidating the testing of systems chips from its various assembly plants.

The company figures increasingly sophisticated testing to ensure shipping quality of increasingly complicated systems on a chip will be vital to success in that strategic market. Fujitsu claims that moving the testing function for its assembly plants to the central testing center will cut costs by 20% and improve efficiency by 30%. The plant, which employs 500, is expected to ship some $475 million (Y55 billion) a year worth of chips.