Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/1998/10/29/mitsubishi_to_end_us_chip/

Mitsubishi to end US chip operations

Holding companies go too, but staff will be retained

By Tony Smith

Posted in On-Prem, 29th October 1998 14:58 GMT

Mitsubishi Electric is to shut down its US chip manufacturing operation and close its wing at a cost of Y80 billion, it emerged today. The compamy also posted a list of other US-based operations that it intends to close. Mitsubishi Electric America, which operates out of California, and North Carolina-based Mitsubishi Semiconductor America will close their doors for the final time by the end of December Both businesses employ 131 and 200 people, but the company said it did not intend to make them redundant, presumably to offer them relocation or voluntary severance. Mitsubishi Semiconductor America's design group, for instance, will be folded into Mitsubishi Electronics America's semiconductor marketing operation. Mitsubishi Electronics America itself will become the company's key representative in the US, along with Mitsubishi Consumer Electronics America. The latter is to shut its cellphone assembly plant -- it will rebadge Solectron phones instead. The company's Astronet subsidiary, which develops and markets antenna stations for carphones, will also be closed. Mitsubishi said it had posted an extraordinary loss of Y18 billion for the six months to September to cover the cost of the closures, but the overall expenditure will come to some Y80 billion. ® Click for more stories Click for story index