Foundries News

• NEC Electronics Introduces 40-nanometer Embedded DRAM (eDRAM) Technologies (Tuesday Nov. 20, 2007)
  The UX8GD eDRAM technology boasts clock speeds up to 800 megahertz and low operating power, making it optimal for use in consumer electronics products such as digital video cameras and game consoles.
  
  
• Qualcomm Makes First Call with Chips Using TSMC's 45nm Technology (Wednesday Nov. 14, 2007)
  Qualcomm today announced it has made the first call on a 3G chip manufactured with 45 nanometer (nm) process technology
  
  
• TSMC October 2007 Sales Report (Friday Nov. 09, 2007)
  Revenues for January through October 2007 totaled NT$254,384 million, a decrease of 4.7 percent compared to the same period in 2006.
  
  
• Tower Semiconductor Reports 28 Percent Revenue Growth for First Nine Months of 2007 (Wednesday Nov. 07, 2007)
  Third Quarter Represents 10 Percent Revenue Growth Year-Over-Year; Midrange Revenue Guidance of 12 Percent Sequential Growth for Fourth Quarter of 2007
  
  
• Tower Semiconductor Launches New Power Management Platform (Monday Oct. 29, 2007)
  The new offering is a fully integrated dual/triple gate 0.18um Power Management platform that supports a wide scale of voltages, including 5, 12, 25 and 42 Volts. The switching devices are implemented by high-current-drive LDMOS transistors, and deliver world-class performance of RDSON = 25 mOhms*mmsq, at 33 Volts BVdss. This performance, which is on an integrated, non-Epi technology, enables implementation of single chip multi-ampere power management integrated circuits.
  
  
• TSMC Reports Third Quarter EPS of NT$1.15 (Thursday Oct. 25, 2007)
  Year-over-year, third quarter revenue increased 7.9% while net income and diluted EPS decreased 6.5% and 6.6%, respectively. On a sequential basis, third quarter results represent an 18.7% increase in revenue, and an increase of 19.2% both in net income and in diluted EPS
  
  
• Spansion Signs Foundry Agreement with SMIC To Produce 300mm, 65nm MirrorBit Products (Wednesday Oct. 24, 2007)
  Spansion will transfer its 65nm MirrorBit® technology to SMIC for foundry services on 300mm wafers in China.
  
  
• ELPIDA And UMC Announce Joint Development Program: Copper LOW-K DRAM and PRAM Technologies (Monday Oct. 22, 2007)
  With the success of this collaboration, UMC will license Elpida under UMC's copper low k technology for Elpida's production and Elpida will license UMC to offer DRAM as part of UMC's advanced System-on-Chip ("SoC") solutions.
  
  
• SMIC and Magma Announce Availability of Enhanced Reference Flow for SMIC's 90-Nanometer Low-Power Process (Thursday Oct. 18, 2007)
  The SMIC-Magma flow utilizes SMIC’s 90-nm standard cell and IO libraries with multi-threshold CMOS (MTCMOS) technology, along with Magma’s low-power design flow, automatic switched domain creation, retention flip-flop insertion, and power analysis for active and sleep modes.
  
  
• Tower Semiconductor Begins Volume Production of ViTi's CMOS Image Sensors for Home Security and Surveillance Systems (Wednesday Oct. 17, 2007)
  Tower Semiconductor today announced that it began manufacturing of a number of CMOS image sensor (CIS) products for Vision Integration Technology, Inc. (ViTi) in its Fab1 manufacturing facility.
  
  
• Silterra Invests $100M in Expanding Capacity (Tuesday Oct. 16, 2007)
  Silterra Malaysia announced today that it has invested US$100 million in its Phase 1 capacity expansion in the existing fab. The capacity expansion consists largely of 0.13u and also some 90nm capability
  
  
• UMC Announces 65nm RFCMOS Process Readiness (Thursday Oct. 11, 2007)
  Complete deliverables are available for UMC's 65nm RF solution, including fundamental libraries, IP, and the foundry industry's first transformer library to help customers jump-start their design-in process. Full characterization reports, models with mismatch Monte Carlo simulation, advance HF noise model and foundry design kits (FDK) complement the 65nm RF process, with RF SPICE models and ESD manuals and support ready.
  
  
• Jazz Semiconductor's 0.18-Micron Silicon Radio Platform Allows Complete Radio Integration (Thursday Oct. 11, 2007)
  Jazz Semiconductor's 0.18-micron Silicon Radio platform is composed of the 0.18-micron base CMOS or SiGe BiCMOS with four modules: an SOI module for the integration of the antenna switch, a PA module with high-power SiGe or CMOS devices, an LNA module with SiGe low-noise devices, and a Passive module consisting of a suite of high quality passive elements for the realization of inter-stage filter and matching circuits
  
  
• TSMC September 2007 Sales Report (Tuesday Oct. 09, 2007)
  TSMC today announced its net sales for September 2007: on an unconsolidated basis, sales were NT$28,496 million, a decrease of 2.4 percent from August 2007 and an increase of 6.1 percent over September 2006. Revenues for January through September 2007 totaled NT$222,659 million, a decrease of 7.2 percent compared to the same period in 2006.
  
  
• Nineteen Electronics Industry Leaders Join Forces to Accelerate SOI (Silicon-On-Insulator) Innovation Into Broad Markets (Monday Oct. 08, 2007)
  A group of leading companies throughout the electronics industry today announced the launching of the SOI Industry Consortium, aimed at accelerating silicon-on-insulator (SOI) innovation into broad markets by promoting the benefits of SOI technology and reducing the barriers to adoption.
  
  
• Tower Semiconductor Wins High-Volume Manufacturing Deal for Fab2 at the 0.13um Technology Generation (Thursday Sep. 20, 2007)
  Expects Sales of Thousands of Wafers-Per-Month to First-Tier U.S. IDM Which Could Become One of Tower’s Top Three Customers; Technology Transfer to Commence Next Quarter; Production Shipments Expected to Begin by End of 2008
  
  
• California Court Issues Order on TSMC Motion for Preliminary Injunction Against SMIC (Friday Sep. 14, 2007)
  The California State Superior Court of Alameda County issued an Order on TSMC’s pre-trial motion for a preliminary injunction against SMIC on September 7, and the Order was made public on September 13, Pacific Time.
  
  
• Jazz Semiconductor Announces Analog-Intensive Mixel-Signal (AIMS) Initiative (Wednesday Sep. 12, 2007)
  Jazz Semiconductor today announced its Analog-Intensive Mixed-Signal (AIMS) initiative to accelerate its leadership in price/performance and power consumption for specialty CMOS technologies and quicken time-to-revenue for analog-intensive products.
  
  
• New IBM Technology Enables Single-Chip Mobile Solutions (Wednesday Sep. 12, 2007)
  This new semiconductor technology -- named CMOS 7RF SOI -- is designed to enable single-chip Radio Frequency (RF) solutions by integrating the multiple RF/analog functions of today's handsets -- such as multi-mode/multi-band RF switches, complex switch biasing networks, and power controllers -- into single-chip solutions for mobile devices.
  
  
• Dongbu HiTek Paves Way for CMOS Image Sensor (CIS) Processing at 110nm Node with Internally Developed Design Library (Tuesday Sep. 11, 2007)
  Highlighting the foundry’s leadership in advancing CIS technology for mobile handset applications, the new library enables low leakage current in standby status as well as up to 5-megapixel resolution in camera phones.
  
  
• TSMC August 2007 Sales Report (Monday Sep. 10, 2007)
  TSMC today announced its net sales for August 2007: on an unconsolidated basis, sales were NT$29,199 million, an increase of 1.5 percent over July 2007 and an increase of 8.1 percent over August 2006. Revenues for January through August 2007 totaled NT$194,163 million, a decrease of 8.9 percent compared to the same period in 2006.
  
  
• Tower Semiconductor Signs and Closes Credit Agreements for the Execution of its Capacity Ramp-Up Plan for Fab2 (Monday Sep. 10, 2007)
  The credit lines, together with the, approximately, $40 million that were raised in June 2007 through the issuance of long-term bonds, are to be used for the execution of the Company's ramp-up plan.
  
  
• SMIC, Hua Hong NEC in merger talks, says report (Tuesday Sep. 04, 2007)
  Foundry Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (Shanghai, China) is in talks to buy another Chinese chipmaker Hua Hong NEC, according to a Reuters report that did not name its sources.
  
  
• Synopsys and SMIC Jointly Address China Mobile TV Market with Low Power Design Solution (Wednesday Aug. 29, 2007)
  The low power design solution based on 130nm and 90nm fab processes will be designed to help resolve problems in power design. In addition, the companies will provide key IP required by mobile TV IC designers, including AD, DA, PLL, USB, SATA and IEEE 1394.
  
  
• TSMC Starts Production of 0.13-micron Embedded Flash Process (Tuesday Aug. 21, 2007)
  TSMC is the first pure-play foundry to launch production of a fully logic compatible 0.13-micron process featuring embedded flash technology.
  
  
• Qimonda Expands Foundry Agreement with SMIC (Tuesday Aug. 21, 2007)
  Under the terms of the agreement, Qimonda will transfer its 80nm DRAM trench technology to SMIC's 300mm facility in Beijing and SMIC will manufacture DRAMs for computing applications in this technology exclusively for Qimonda. Furthermore, the agreement includes the option to transfer Qimonda's 75nm technology to SMIC in the future.
  
  
• Tower Semiconductor Announces Supply Chain Efficiency Plan; Expects Cost Reduction of Approximately $15 Million through the Coming Three Years (Monday Aug. 20, 2007)
  The services provided by EMA will include: onsite spare parts management services, planning, procurement, logistics, repair, transport and delivery. The significant achievement of this transaction is the fact that the vendor purchases and owns the spare part inventory and assumes responsibility for the entire supply chain, including the spare parts’ availability. Therefore, the supplier and the customer share the risks and advantages of managing efficient inventory.
  
  
• UMC Announces a Reorganization of Management Structure (Friday Aug. 17, 2007)
  Executive Vice President Dr. Shih-wei Sun, currently head of UMC’s Central Research and Development Division and Fab 12A, will take the position of Chief Operating Officer (COO) for 12-inch operations, and UMC vice president W. Y. Chen has been appointed to the position of Senior Vice President in charge of UMC’s 8-inch and 6-inch operations.
  
  
• Microsoft Embraces TSMC 90nm Embedded DRAM Process for Xbox 360 (Wednesday Aug. 15, 2007)
  Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd. today announced that Microsoft has started production of the Microsoft Xbox 360 graphics-memory subsystem using the TSMC 90nm embedded DRAM process. Designed to meet the needs of volume consumer electronics devices, the TSMC 90nm eDRAM process features a high-density macro design (80Mb) and fast performance to 500MHz.
  
  
• Tower Semiconductor Reports 28 Percent Year-Over-Year Revenue Growth in the Second Quarter 2007 and 40 Percent Growth in the First Half 2007 (Wednesday Aug. 15, 2007)
  Achieved record quarterly revenues of $57.1 million representing the eighth consecutive quarter of revenue growth, representing year-over-year growth of approximately 28 percent