US-based semiconductor firm Freescale announced on April 22 that the company will close down plants in France and Japan by year-end 2011, in a bid to keep the company afloat. The closedown of its two plants, one located in Toulouse, France, and the other located in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture is attributed to the company's decision to halt 150-mm chip production. Through a JV with Toshiba, Freescale set up the Sendai plant in the 1980s, which mainly manufactured microcontrollers and sensors for use in automobiles and consumer digital products. The entire personnel of 600 at Freescale's Sendai plant will be either transferred or laid off, according to a Nikkei report on April 24.