Air Products (Lehigh Valley, Pa.; www.airproducts.com) has recently received multiple, long-term supply awards from semiconductor and flat panel display manufacturers in China as the country’s electronics manufacturing industry continues to boom.
Industrial gases supply contracts awarded to Air Products over the past 12 months call for the investment in six industrial-gas plants and a pipeline network for the supply of gaseous nitrogen and oxygen, as well as other bulk gases. These facilities will support existing and new customers in key electronics clusters and industrial parks in China’s major economic regions, including the Yangtze River Delta in Eastern China, Pearl River Delta in Southern China, and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region in Northern China.
“We are greatly honored to be selected by our existing as well as new customers to support their growth plans in China. These wins speak volumes about their confidence in our capabilities,” says Saw Choon Seong, China president, Industrial Gases at Air Products. “Air Products has been serving the China market for 30 years. These recent strategic investments reflect our continued commitment to supporting the fast-paced development of electronics manufacturing customers here who are gaining new momentum for growth under the country’s 13th Five-Year Plan and ‘Made in China 2025’ initiative. We will continue to bring our scale, innovation, and reliable and safe supply to enable them to thrive.”
The Chinese Government has a strong commitment to boosting development of the electronics industry. One initiative is the establishment of the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, commonly known as the Big Fund, to invest roughly $20 billion from 2014 through 2017 in the country’s semiconductor industry. In addition, local governments have also set up regional-level funds totaling around $100 billion to promote key technologies and major projects.
Air Products’ wins over the past 12 months include some landmark projects in China’s electronics industry, and some are state-level projects, such as:
– A new memory fab in the Fujian (Jinjiang) Integrated Circuit Industrial Park in Fujian Province, Southern China
– A new foundry in the Pukou Economic Development Zone (PKEDZ) in Eastern China, a state-level high-tech park that will be home to advanced manufacturing and is only 35 km away from the Nanjing Chemical Industry Park (NCIP). Air Products has already built a leading position in the NCIP serving several hundred customers in the park and across Nanjing through pipelines and various supply modes
Air Products has been a leading industrial gases supplier to the global electronics industry for over 40 years. In China, the company has been serving many world-leading and domestic manufacturers in the development of next generation electronics devices by leveraging its strong and reliable supply network across the country. One example is the supply to one of China’s most advanced fabs, which is located in Xian City, Western China, and is owned and operated by a leading global semiconductor company. Air Products is also supplying the country’s highest-generation, most advanced and most efficient TFT-LCD (thin-film transistor liquid crystal display) fab located in the Banan Jieshi IT Industrial Park in Chongqing City, Western China.