Soitec opens Taiwan office

Centered in Taipei, Soitec's new Southeast Asian office will primarily support operations in Taiwan and Singapore, working closely with major foundries in both locations to help accelerate their transition to SOI for their next-generation chips. To head the new office, Soitec has tapped Bill Chu from Vishay Semiconductor. Formerly, Chu held key management positions in both sales and purchasing at a number of leading semiconductor companies, including United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC), Taisil Electronic Materials Corporation (TEM) and most recently Vishay Semiconductor where he served as purchasing department manager. According to market research firms, SOI market is expected to become one of the highest growth emerging market in the coming years, as growth is being driven by consumer demand for faster and more power-efficient electronic products, such as game consoles, high-end computers, home servers and HDTV applications. With continued scaling in the device industry, the emphasis on power consumption becomes more urgent, and the need for new generations of low-power and ultra-low power devices is critical to breaking through the thermal barriers.