If realized, the plan would allow the US chip giant to bolster ties with local partners, the ¬Chinese-language Economic Daily News said, adding that a company executive would come to Taipei to investigate. The newspaper did not say where it obtained the information.

Qualcomm’s local partners include Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), the world’s leading contract microchip manufacturer, and HTC Corp (宏達電), the world’s leading maker of smartphones running on the Windows Mobile and Android platforms, the report said.

The California-based company’s planned center in Taiwan came after a Taiwanese government official said last week that the US chipmaker would invest NT$63 billion (US$1.97 billion) through its display unit to build new fabrication capabilities in Taiwan to provide energy-saving color flat panels for electronic devices like e-readers by next year.

Northern Taiwan Science Park Administration director-¬general Randy Yen (顏宗明) said on Wednesday that Qualcomm MEMS Technologies is expected to crank out the first batch of color displays for e-readers in the second half of next year.