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.

(China Daily January 29, 2005)