It is testimony to our growing role as a high-performance ASIC leader," explained Johnny Shen, Alchip President and CEO. Alchip is globally diversifying its design assets to more efficiently meet customer expectations. The new design center will be a hub for engineering functions including front-end IP subsystem integration and verification, DFT, electrical design, and all physical design tasks from netlist to GDS. Alchip selected Malaysia in part because Southeast Asia countries offer cost effective-talent pools for expanding engineering resources. Mr. Shen emphasized, however, that Taiwan continues to be Alchip's main manufacturing location. He also reiterated that Alchip is actively expanding North American engineering resources to collaborate more closely with customers in that region. Malaysia is fast becoming a semiconductor design and manufacturing center.