SGS Singapore (now STMicroelectronics)
Società Generale Semiconduttori (SGS) of in Agrate, Milan, Italy and an affiliate of the Oilvetti Group was founded in 1957.[1] It was incorporated in Singapore in April 1969, as SGS Singapore, a wholly owned subsidiary of SGS. The company began operations at its flatted factory in Kallang Basin, Boon Keng area, with only a dozen workers. By 1972, the factory was employing around 750 workers across two shifts, with 85% of their workforce consisting of women aged between 18 and 20[2] and by 1970, this increased to 850. Dr. Guido Zargani, general manager of SGS, revealed the company’s foresight to plan a new factory before it began operations in June 1969 and truly there was a rapid growth till outgrown its facilities at its first premise. On 1st October 1970, SGS moved into the new Toa Payoh factory which was a 2-storey, 120,000 square meters, most up-to-date facility. Equipped with new machinery and equipment brought from various parts of Europe, the production started immediately with transfer of workers from its Kallang Basin plant. SGS was among the companies to set up factories in Toa Payoh in the late 1960s besides Fairchild Semiconductor and Philips. The production included silicon transistors (plastic and metal-can) and integrated circuits (ICs) which were exported to many countries through the parent company’s worldwide marketing organization.[3]
In July 1972, the SILO was accorded by two more firms to represent employees, of which one of them was SGS Singapore Pte Ltd. By 1972, the factory was employing around 750 workers across two shifts, with 85% of their workforce consisting of women aged between 18 and 20.[4]
In February 1977, Dr Malavasi, managing director SGS-Ates Singapore stated that the company planned to expand into an additional three product lines and introduced facilities for plating processes, involving investments divided between building ad machinery. End of 1976, the company introduced new lines namely supplementing a range comprising flash tubes, semiconductors, ignition coils, surge voltage protection tubes with special power audio-integrated amplifies and ceramic lines of integrated circuits for computers. The SGS Ates SPA, parent company in Italy had plans for the Singapore plant to produce 90% of the products. By then, SGS Ates was the largest Italian manufacturer here, with a work force of 14,050. The fact that most of the Italian companies who have set up in Singapore came on their own initiative, in a way reflected a lack of representation by Singapore. The EDB did not have a representative office Italy and attempted to generate investments from that country from its Paris office and London. The Milan Fair, the 55th in the series will be a good opportunity for promotion of Singapore.[5]
In mid-February 1981, SGS-Ates announced an extension plan for its Singapore operations which included a wafer diffusion plant here which would help to integrate and upgrade the group’s present set-up here into a centre for its Asia-Pacific markets. Dr Guido Zargani, Managing Director in charge of the Asia-Pacific region who was based in Singapore said that the company had bought an 8,000sqm land in Ang Mo Kio to prepare for the new diffusion plant. The Singapore subsidiary was producing power transistors and ICs for industrial electronic equipment, providing the technical support in terms of services, maintenance and applications.[6] By October 198, SGS Ates invested additional $30 million in order to complete the current automation programme[7]
By end 1984 or early 1985, Singapore had its first microchip factory completed with a highly automated machinery and equipment were installed progressively and the plant was situated in Ang Mo Kio Industrial Park II. The SGS plant was Singapore’s first chip-making or wafer diffusion factory, SGS has four chip factories worldwide, the other three in Italy, West Germany and the US. All SGS operations – factories, sales, research labs – were linked by a computer network to provide better coordination and flexibility. Mr Anthony J. Watts, SGS’s product marketing manager for Asia-Pacific, said the plant in Toa Payoh was in the process of installing a HP3000 computer to link up with the network. The chip-making plant employed about 300 people when fully in operation, mostly technical staff. Training of 30-40 key people took place as a preparation before the plant commenced its operation at end of the year[8]
The company discussed with EDB on setting up a microchip design centre in Singapore, being the Italian instead of the American company that took this first plunge. The centre which employed 10-20 people, some of whom will be trained in the SGS plants in Milan, Munich or Arizona, was sited next to SGS’s chip-making factory in Ang Mo Kio.[9] This Singapore’s first chip-making plant was three months ahead of schedule, set up in September 1984. SGS sent six engineers to Milan the following month for a one-year attachment with its chip designing centre there. In November, 15-20 engineers were sent to Italy to learn about wafer diffusion (first of its kind in Singapore), the process by which chips are made. SGS had sales offices in most Asian cities which, working with its application labs in Hongkong and Taiwan, feeding advanced technical information on customer specifications to the design centre in Singapore. The Singapore design centre started by concentrating on chips for the consumer electronics market, then looked at the telecommunications market.[10]
SGS Semiconductors invested $5 million in a design centre to create new ICs. Housed together with its wafer diffusion plant in Ang Mo Kio, the process involved impurities being diffused into imported silicon wafers at the factory, tested and broken up, the individual ICs placed into carriers and then sealed. This whole assembly process was carried out at SGS’ factory in Toa Payoh.[11]
In end November 1984, Singapore’s first semiconductor wafer diffusion plant started production in Ang Mo Kio Industrial Park 2. The plant, belonging to SGS Semiconductor (Pte) Ltd, involved the wafer diffusion and chips-making processes. Mr Jeffrey See was the plant manager. The finished chips were assembled and tested in Toa Payoh plant before 80% exported. The rest were used by local electronics industry.[12] A week before the beginning of December 1984, the first locally made microchips were produced last week. Besides the chip products, products included audio amplifier chips, voltage regulators and other signal processing linear ICs, power transistors.[13]
January 1985 was the opening of wafer diffusion factory and design centre in Ang Mo Kio. On-going expansion was taking place, with a growing workforce of 1,700 out of which 1,380 workers were at the Toa Payoh plant. Milivoj von Somogy was the managing director of local subsidiary of SGS Semiconductor, who took over from Guido Zargani in February 1986 as MD and president of Asian-Pacific operations. Meanwhile, SGS corporate president was Dr Pasquale Pistario. [14]
[1] https://www.pmo.gov.sg/Newsroom/DPM-Heng-Swee-Keat-at-the-Opening-Ceremony-for-STMicroelectronics-New-Fab-Investment
[2] https://www.nhb.gov.sg/~/media/nhb/files/places/trails/toa%20payoh%20trail%20booklet%20full%20set-low%20res.pdf
[3] https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/straitstimes19701002-1.2.91?ST=1&AT=filter&DF=&DT=&AO=false&NPT=&L=&CTA=&NID=&CT=ARTICLE&WC=&YR=&SortBy=Oldest&k=SGS+singapore%26ka%3dSGS+singapore&P=5&Display=0&filterS=0&QT=sgs,singapore&oref=article
[4] https://www.nhb.gov.sg/~/media/nhb/files/places/trails/toa%20payoh%20trail%20booklet%20full%20set-low%20res.pdf
[5] https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/biztimes19770223-1.2.44?ST=1&AT=filter&DF=&DT=&AO=false&NPT=&L=&CTA=&NID=&CT=ARTICLE&WC=&YR=&SortBy=Oldest&k=SGS+singapore%26ka%3dSGS+singapore&P=6&Display=0&filterS=0&QT=sgs,singapore&oref=article
[6] https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/biztimes19810214-1.2.44?ST=1&AT=filter&DF=&DT=&AO=false&NPT=&L=&CTA=&NID=&CT=ARTICLE&WC=&YR=&SortBy=Oldest&k=SGS+singapore%26ka%3dSGS+singapore&P=7&Display=0&filterS=0&QT=sgs,singapore&oref=article
[7] https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/biztimes19811022-1.2.3?ST=1&AT=filter&DF=&DT=&AO=false&NPT=&L=&CTA=&NID=&CT=ARTICLE&WC=&YR=&SortBy=Oldest&k=SGS+singapore%26ka%3dSGS+singapore&P=7&Display=0&filterS=0&QT=sgs,singapore&oref=article
[8] https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/straitstimes19830404-1.2.69.5?ST=1&AT=filter&DF=&DT=&AO=false&NPT=&L=&CTA=&NID=&CT=ARTICLE&WC=&YR=&SortBy=Oldest&k=SGS+singapore%26ka%3dSGS+singapore&P=8&Display=0&filterS=0&QT=sgs,singapore&oref=article
[9] https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/biztimes19830414-1.2.6?ST=1&AT=filter&DF=&DT=&AO=false&NPT=&L=&CTA=&NID=&CT=ARTICLE&WC=&YR=&SortBy=Oldest&k=SGS+singapore%26ka%3dSGS+singapore&P=8&Display=0&filterS=0&QT=sgs,singapore&oref=article
[10] https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/biztimes19830825-1.2.10?ST=1&AT=filter&DF=&DT=&AO=false&NPT=&L=&CTA=&NID=&CT=ARTICLE&WC=&YR=&SortBy=Oldest&k=SGS+singapore%26ka%3dSGS+singapore&P=8&Display=0&filterS=0&QT=sgs,singapore&oref=article
[11] https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/biztimes19840831-1.2.2?ST=1&AT=filter&DF=&DT=&AO=false&NPT=&L=&CTA=&NID=&CT=ARTICLE&WC=&YR=&SortBy=Oldest&k=SGS+singapore%26ka%3dSGS+singapore&P=9&Display=0&filterS=0&QT=sgs,singapore&oref=article
[12] https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/straitstimes19841126-1.2.24.7?ST=1&AT=filter&DF=&DT=&AO=false&NPT=&L=&CTA=&NID=&CT=ARTICLE&WC=&YR=&SortBy=Oldest&k=SGS+singapore%26ka%3dSGS+singapore&P=9&Display=0&filterS=0&QT=sgs,singapore&oref=article
[13] https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/biztimes19841203-1.2.8.3.1?ST=1&AT=filter&DF=&DT=&AO=false&NPT=&L=&CTA=&NID=&CT=ARTICLE&WC=&YR=&SortBy=Oldest&k=SGS+singapore%26ka%3dSGS+singapore&P=9&Display=0&filterS=0&QT=sgs,singapore&oref=article
[14] https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/biztimes19860514-1.2.4?ST=1&AT=filter&DF=&DT=&AO=false&NPT=&L=&CTA=&NID=&CT=ARTICLE&WC=&YR=&SortBy=Oldest&k=SGS+singapore%26ka%3dSGS+singapore&P=13&Display=0&filterS=0&QT=sgs,singapore&oref=article