$50 million pad plant

, which engages in chemical mechanical planarisation (CMP) technology for the global semiconductor industry, will build a pad manufacturing plant and technology centre at the

, a satellite campus of the

in

.

The Rohm and Haas Electronic Materials, CMP Technologies Asia Pacific Manufacturing and Technical Centre will encompass next-generation IC1000 polishing pad production, an applications lab and sales and customer support offices.

Expected to be in commercial production by the first quarter of 2007, the centre’s proximity to fabs throughout Asia will enable faster response times and local support for existing customers and new 300mm fabs being built over the next decade.

Rohm and Haas Electronic Materials will invest $50 million in this manufacturing and technology centre located on six acres in the Chunan Science Park. This facility can be expanded to accommodate future growth in the Asia Pacific region, which currently accounts for more than 65 percent of the business of CMP Technologies.

The facility will include a 45,000-square-foot plant dedicated to advanced manufacturing technology for next generation CMP pads. The 20,000-square-foot technical centre is designed to be the most comprehensive laboratory for CMP consumables in Asia.

Full capability for 300 mm CMP polishing and post-CMP cleaning and associated metrology will be installed in Class 1 to 10 clean rooms of approximately 4,000 square feet. Equipment and instrumentation for pad and slurry product analysis as well as slurry blending capability will also be a part of the laboratory. CMP Technologies expects the facility's staff to grow to greater than 150 members by 2010.

"We believe our proximity to the Taiwan foundries and integrated device manufacturers, as well as the accessibility to other critical customer sites in Asia, will reduce cycle time for both customer production needs and development opportunities," commented Nick Gutwein, president and CEO, Rohm and Haas Electronic Materials, CMP Technologies.