July 27, 2004 – Xilinx Inc. has invested more than $10 million in Chinese foundry Heijian Technology Co. in an effort to move manufacturing from Taiwan to the mainland and cut costs, according to a Reuters report.

The Suzhou -based foundry, founded by former UMC workers, boasts production of 20,000 200mm wafers/month, and expects 60,000 wafers/month output by 2006. It expects to begin production of Xilinx’s programmable-logic devices by year’s end. Shifting production to the mainland foundry could save 10%-15% than manufacturing in Taiwan, stated Wim Roelandts, quoted by Reuters.