SEVERAL high technology companies will be meeting the Penang government tomorrow (April 27) to discuss potential investments in the state, Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow revealed.
Chow mentioned that these companies have been in discussions with Penang and are the same group of corporations interested in the upcoming IC design park in Selangor.
“We will provide more details tomorrow (April 27),” he said briefly today.
Chow said that, since 2000, Penang has been home to several companies specialising in IC design.
“It is not that we lack IC design companies in Penang, just that there is no specific park dedicated to it,” Chow told reporters when asked about the former Penang chief minister Lim Guan Eng’s recent remark.
Lim reportedly asked the state government to explain the loss of a multi-million ringgit IC design park to Selangor despite being able to afford to project.
Chow, in his recent statement on his official Facebook page, said that the Penang government has remained committed and steadfast in securing strategic investments that will bolster Penang’s economic trajectory and solidify its position as a preferred investment destination in the Asia-Pacific region.
He said Penang with its expertise in the manufacturing sector for over five decades has become a ‘natural magnet’ for back-end chip manufacturing and is expected to further integrate with the global chip supply chain in the upcoming decades.
Chow added that Penang, since the year 2000, has become a hub for IC design, hosting over 20 companies, with multinational corporations (MNCs) making up 85% of the sector. The key players in this sector include Intel, AMD, Lattice, Microchip, Efinix, StarFive, and Synopsys.
As a result, he said Penang has developed a complex yet dynamic electrical and electronics (E&E) and semiconductor ecosystem that has consequently enabled the nurturing of three homegrown IC design corporations namely SkyeChip, Oppstar Technology, and Infinecs Systems.
Story by Riadz Akmal
Pix by Ahmad Adil Muhamad
Video by Darwina Mohd Daud