Spansion, a pure-play provider of flash memory solutions, announced on August 4 that it has expanded its global engineering network with a new integrated circuit (IC) design center located in Suzhou, said the company in a statement. Located near many high-profile consumer electronics companies and within Spansion's existing Suzhou manufacturing facility, the center will enable Spansion to leverage regional design expertise and rapidly respond to the rising demand for Spansion MirrorBit and Logic-on-Flash solutions in Asia.   "Establishing the Suzhou center will position Spansion to more effectively serve the rapidly expanding consumer electronics market in Asia by working closely with the region's complementary hardware and software suppliers, as well as end customers,” said Bertrand Cambou, president and chief executive officer of Spansion. The center will initially house a team of ten engineers for developing system-on-chip (SoC) solutions that integrate Spansion MirrorBit Flash memory with logic. Spansion plans to grow the facility to 50 engineers within three years, and expand system and software engineering resources. The center is expected to be fully operational by mid-2007.