Explosive customer demand drove ST’s growth in manufacturing capacity during 1999 and timely capital investments of more than $1.35 billion were made to expand existing facilities and to bring new fabs on line. A healthy backlog of customer orders at year end reflects the continued strength of demand, and ST enters the new millennium well positioned for the upturn in the semiconductor cycle. The manufacturing plant is not simply where ST’s best ideas come to fruit-ion. It is also where innovations are born. A prime example in 1999 is the Com-pany’s $170 million plant extension in Muar, Malaysia, the world’s first fully-automated IC assembly and testing facility. Cutting-edge automation tec-hnology at Muar handles every phase of manufacturing, from die bonding through testing and packaging, in a completely hands-free environment. Cycle time has been reduced from five days to as little as five hours, bringing a one third increase in productivity. At top capacity the plant will have a total of 31 fully automated production lines, positioning ST to supply state-of-the-art semiconductor packages for its global customers in the automotive, computing and wireless telecommunications industries. To strengthen its world class manufacturing machine, the equipping of two new 8-inch fabs in Rousset (France) and Agrate (Italy) was started in 1999 preparing for ramp up to volume production in the year 2000. In 1999 the Company also announced the acceleration of its plans to build a new submicron wafer plant in Singapore. This, together with the planned addition of a further 6-inch line to ST’s manufacturing complex in Singapore, will re-inforce the plant’s position as probably the most powerful multiproduct unit in the world.