This investment case was announced by Tsinghua Unigroup Chairman Zhao Weiguo on December 30. Important Mainland Chinese Government officials were all in attendance at the press conference.

Tsinghua Group stated that the United National Industrial Fund for Integrated Circuits, Hubei Provincial Local Fund, and Hubei Branch Investment will jointly invest in the project, and it will integrate R&D personnel in Wuhan, Shanghai, Silicon Valley, and Taiwan to conduct independent research and development into the design and production of 3D NAND Flash.

In addition, construction of the plant will mainly be located on the Yangtze River at the future site of a future science and technology city in the Wuhan East Lake High Tech Development Zone, which covers 1,968 acres. The factories that will be constructed will be the 3D NAND flash factories that occupy the three largest land mass areas in the world, and there will also be an R&D headquarters building.

According to the first phase of the Tsinghua Group's plan, the commissioning of the factory will be completed in 2018, and the construction will be completed in 2020. The factory will have a production capacity of 300,00 chips, and the annual output value will exceed US$10 billion.

(TR/ Phil Sweeney)