The US-based company's highly-automated assembly and testing facilities in the Philippines, Malaysia and China fuelled the production of the new Centrino Mobile Technology package.

Comprising a mobile microprocessor, chipsets and a wireless network connection, the package was launched worldwide by Intel as its best technology yet for mobile PCs.

It enables wireless communications, extended battery life, thinner and lighter notebook designs and enhanced mobile performance.

"Assembly and testing of components of Centrino Mobile Technology show that Asia is a key part of Intel's operations and epitomizes the region's talent, capability and motivated workforce," said Wong Siew Hai, the company's global head of assembly and testing.

Intel's Asian workforce can now design and operate entire assembly and testing processes, he said. Previously, the region relied more heavily on American technology and skilled manpower.

Four of Intel's five global assembly and test facilities are located in Asia -- in Cavite, south of the Philippine capital Manila; in Penang island and Kulim province in northwestern Peninsular Malaysia; and in Shanghai, China's largest city.

The fifth centre is in Costa Rica.

Among other products, the Cavite facility assembles and tests the Intel Pentium mobile processors, the brains of the Centrino package.

Intel designed the processors from scratch to extend battery life in mobile PCs, said Robin Martin, General Manager of Intel Philippines.

"The Centrino mobile technology is a whole new experience. It will change the way people work and live," Martin said.

The Malaysian plant produces the chipsets, which link the microprocessor to the rest of the computer, as well as wireless chips for seamless network access without cables.

The Shanghai facility, the newest of the Asian operations, also produces the chipsets for Centrino technology-based mobile PCs.

This is the first time Intel integrated a combination of technologies under a single brand in what the company's chief executive officer Craig Barrett called a "breakthrough innovation."

With notebooks based on Centrino technology, a business traveler can check office email or read the hometown newspaper online while waiting for a flight at the airport, and still have battery life left to watch a DVD movie on the plane ride home, Intel officials say.

Also, a real estate agent can check the latest listings wirelessly while dining with prospective home-buyers, or a financial planner can check the market and activate client orders while at a seminar without compromising performance necessary to run the most demanding office applications.

Intel's manufacturing facilities in Asia traditionally cut into small chips dinner-plate sized silicon wafers imported from the US and other countries.

They are then assembled in packages and vigorously tested using cutting-edge technology before being shipped to customers.

Almost all the assembly processes are automated. The Asians who establish and supervise these processes and attend to their problems are highly qualified and skilled, Wong said.

"Before we used to bring expats from the United States to attend to the problems in factories in the Far East but now we have talent in the region to handle it ourselves," Wong said during a recent visit to the Cavite plant.

For example, Martin said, Intel engineers in Asia helped develop a process called self-parallel testing, which allows for faster and more efficient verification of the functions of Centrino mobile processors.

During the last 30 years, Intel has pumped more than three billion dollars in investments into its Asian assembly and testing operations "and as our market grows, we will continue to invest more in the region," Wong said.

Intel has not made any decisions on the possibility of setting up in Asia wafer fabrication plants, the front end of the semiconductor manufacturing process.

A modern wafer fab can cost more than two billion dollars to construct and equip.

"It is standard procedure for Intel to strategically evaluate locations around the world for potential future expansions," Wong said.

Intel's assembly and testing facilities in Asia are also closer to the fastest growing geographical areas of the market.

In the first quarter of 2003, the region, including Japan, accounted for 3.186 billion dollars or 47 percent of the company's revenue.

Intel reported a net profit of 915 million dollars on the back of a global turnover of 6.75 billion dollars between January and March 2003.

Intel's products also account for a bulk of the electronics exports of host countries.

In the Philippines, for example, Intel has been the largest single exporter for the fifth consecutive year, Martin said.

Aside from assembly and testing of a range of Intel products, including microprocessors, chipsets and flash memory devices, the facilities in the Philippines and Malaysia are also involved in technology development work.

They include product design, assembly packaging and test process development.

"The Shanghai facility will soon follow suit," Wong said, adding that it is also beginning to assemble and test microprocessors aside from flash memory devices and chipsets.

To support its operations in Asia, Intel has also set up regional corporate services and supply logistics units.

"If Asians continue to prove they can do the job, we will see more and more of these responsibilities given to the region," Wong said.

Wong himself set the pace by choosing to run his global duties from his home country Malaysia even though his predecessors were based in the United States.

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