Indonesia and Malaysia are competing for investment in technology companies. After Indonesia announced its partnership with Tesla, Malaysia announced its partnership with Foxconn, the iPhone assembler.
Foxconn, which is the main assembler of the iPhone, announced that it will set up a chip manufacturing facility in Malaysia. The plant is to produce semiconductors used in electric vehicles (EVs).
The certainty came after the company signed a memorandum of understanding with a local Malaysian partner, namely Dagang NeXchange Berhad (DNex).
As quoted from Mashable, Sunday (22/5/2022) the collaboration between Foxconn and DNex is part of a joint venture that will spearhead the development and operation of a facility dedicated to making 12 -inch chips.
If all goes well, then this new chip facility will be in line with the Neighboring State government's program which is expanding the semiconductor industry in the country. Meanwhile, Foxconn, the collaboration with DNex became their 'vehicle' to achieve even larger vehicle technology goals in the future.
Reportedly, the plant is expected to produce 40 thousand 12 nm wafer chips in a month, this includes 28 nm and 40 nm technology.
Although the location and capacity of the chip plant in Malaysia has not been announced in detail, but the project is estimated at in the range of USD 3 billion to USD 5 billion.
As for competing chip manufacturers, such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., United Microelectronic Corp., and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Co., all expanded to 28 nm chip manufacturers.
