DESIGN AND MANUFACTURE BY FOREIGN ELECTRONICS MULTI-NATIONALS IN SINGAPORE AND TAIWAN - PRODUCT RESPONSIBILITIES IN A GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT

The electronics clusters in Singapore and Taiwan have grown largely as a result of foreign direct investment. It is shown that foreign elect ronics companies in Singapore and Taiwan manufacture with processes cl ose to the state-of-the-art and have considerable process and product design responsibilities. It is established that the products designed are not the core technology for the companies concerned. When compared to the development of the Scottish sires of foreign electronics compa nies, the sites in Singapore and Taiwan compare favourably in terms of time to obtain design responsibilities and the size of R&D (research and development) teams. National initiatives in Singapore and Taiwan t hat support the move to R&D at foreign sites are described.