Haier cooperates with US firm on power By Wen Dao (China Daily) Updated: 2005-01-29 09:05
US semiconductor company ON Semiconductor will invest more to develop its
customer base in China as a result of Friday's establishment of its first joint
laboratory with a Chinese company.
The NASDAQ-listed semiconductor firm yesterday opened the power management
laboratory with China's biggest electronics company Haier Group in the latter's
headquarters in Qingdao of East China's Shandong Province.
Joint development efforts at the lab will focus on efficient power solutions
for Haier's next-generation products including air-conditioners, refrigerators,
washing machines and liquid crystal display (LCD) television sets.
ON Semiconductor will send an engineering group to and provide equipment for
the joint laboratory, while Haier will also form a special team to work with ON
Semiconductor.
"The growth in indigenous customers is fantastic, although the applications
on advanced power management remain in their infancy among local Chinese
companies," said David Chow, vice-president for sales and marketing with On
Semiconductor China.
He declined to say the percentage of revenues from local customers, but it
was believed to be only a small part of ON Semiconductor's China business, which
is the fastest growing market for the US firm.
Bill Bradford, ON Semiconductor senior vice-president for sales and
marketing, believed the partnership with Haier will be the top priority for ON
Semiconductor in power management in the electronics industry.
Li Li, deputy general manager of Haier's research and development division,
said ON Semiconductor's switching power supply solutions have been used on some
of Haier air conditioners and her company hoped to adopt solutions in all
product lines this year.
For Haier, ON Semiconductor's solutions will help it meet different
requirements on power conservation in the world.
According to ON Semiconductor, the basic version of its switching power
supply solutions only consumes one watt of electricity, compared with the
mainstream three watts and some of its advanced solutions can even drop that to
80 milliwatts.
As the United States, Europe and Japan have higher and higher requirements on
power supply, Haier, which exported US$1 billion and produced another US$1
billion of home appliances in the world last year, is also facing a big
challenge to meet those requirements.
