A group of local and foreign investors are looking to build a $500 million semiconductor manufacturing facility in Brazil -- the first for that nation -- according to a Dow Jones report.

Ground could be broken before the end of this year, according to Wolfgang Sauer, quoted in the Down Jones report as speaking with the Estado news agency about plans for the new facility.

Production would ramp within two years and would work in coordination with a planned semiconductor research park in the region.

Sauer provided the details about the facility following a meeting with Brazil's Commerce Minister Luiz Fernando Furlan. Sauer is president of WS Consult and former president of Volkswagen Brazil. 

But Sauer provided no additional details about the investors in the project.

Plenty of the semiconductor industry's big players have expressed an interest, however, in the country. In March Intel created a $50 million venture capital fund to promote technology growth in Brazil. And last December AMD announced a partnership with telecom provider Telefonica on the FIC Conectado Personal Internet Communicator (PIC) a low cost Internet access package. In June, Fairchild Semiconductor opened a new design center for power chips in Sao Paolo, Brazil.

Brazil has been pushing for a local semiconductor facilities since it adopted the Japanese digital television transmission standard in June, according to the Dow Jones report.  Government officials are studying offering tax breaks to companies interested in investing in the semiconductor industry in Brazil.