Fairchild Semiconductor | Silicon Island

Fairchild in Singapore

Fairchild started its operations in Singapore in April 1969. Initially, Fairchild was temporarily located on the upper floor of the HDB’ s Toa Payoh Estate west office while nearby its permanent factory was built. Fairchild Singapore Pte Ltd, a subsidiary of Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corporation, was opened in early December 1969, by Dr. Toh Chin Chye the Minister for Science and Technology. The reasons for choosing Singapore is because of the Republic’s political stability, good investment climate, availability of good labour willing to be trained, relatively well-industrialized country, helpful government which renders assistance establishment of new factories.

In October 1971, the top executives of Fairchild toured their plants in East Asia including Korea, Tokyo, Okinawa, Taipei, Hong Kong and Singapore. They had a meeting with the then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and other government officials and business officials. By this time, Fairchild, which recruited 500 workers to double output, has its output increased by 60% since began operations in 1969. Fairchild recognized the Singapore Industrial Labour Organization (SILO) on 8 June 1972 as the union representing the workers. SILO subsequently agreed with 15 companies to implement National Wage Council recommendations of 8% pay increase, Fairchild included. Fairchild’s president, Dr. C. Lester Hogan came in early August 1972 for a Southeast Asia tour and said that the number of workers had to increase to meet the demands. There was an event where about 200 ladies form Fairchild refused to work because of dissatisfaction with the working hours but soon returned after a meeting between SILO and the management at the Labour Ministry. Subsequently, more ladies were employed, including the housewives. End 1972, while National Semiconductor laid off its employees, other companies including Fairchild offered paid leaves.

Fairchild witnessed a couple of retrenchments, in August till September 1974 and in March 1985. As alternatives for laying off its workers, Fairchild introduced a four-day working week and offered voluntary resignations to fellow employees. These retrenched workers including foreigners were either absorbed by other keen companies such as SGS Semiconductor and Maxtor Singapore, rehired by Fairchild or landed on another job.

Fairchild’s factories are in 11, Lorong 3 Toa Payoh, Boon Keng Road which caught fire once, Fairchild Test Systems which occupies 1,308 sqm of a JTC flatted factory in Macpherson. Fairchild Sales is the local subsidiary of Fairchild Test Systems, a division of Fairchild Camera and Instruments of the US. The group also has a semiconductor subsidiary in Singapore, Fairchild Semiconductor.

Products of the local Fairchild are microprocessors, high-technology products which includes electronic emission control systems for cars. Other products include small outline integrated circuits (SOIC) and what Fairchild calls “20-leads” packages for semiconductors, chips used in the aerospace and defence industries. The company also produced CMOS logic family of chips with a sub-2-micron process, known as FACT. Exetron CPG, a part of Fairchild Semiconductor group, manufactured, assembled and exported watches, calculators, digital clocks. However, Fairchild later decided to phase out the production of consumer items in Singapore, including digital clocks and watches produced by Exetron CPG. Fairchild also assembles sophisticated semiconductor devices like metal oxide silicon (MOS), bi-polar here.

In 1979, Fairchild Camera and Instrument (including Fairchild Semiconductor) became a subsidiary of Schlumberger Limited.[1] In 1987, National Semiconductor Corporation bought Schlumberger Ltd.’s Fairchild Semiconductor Corp.[2]

[2] https://apnews.com/article/2b5a651d552eb136c3bf1d825dbe7986