KUALA LUMPUR - The Ibiden Co. of Japan will begin building its planned PCB manufacturing plant in Malaysia, according to a statement by the company.

The statement, jointly issued with the Malaysian government, says that the Japanese company would invest more than $308 million over a 10-year period. The plant will develop and manufacture multi-layer PCBs.

The investment is considerably more than the $193.5 million originally proposed.

The company has already constructed a PCB manufacturing plant Beijing, China. This would be the company's second project in Malaysia, after building a semiconductor packaging facility there in 2000.

A company spokesman said, "We will be investing in the commercialization of free vias structure system (FVSS) technology…patented by Ibiden Research," and that the FVSS technology would be incorporated into mobile phones and miniaturized products.