Foundries News

• First IBM Technology for Power-Management Chips Holds Promise for Breakthroughs in Alternative Energy (Monday Sep. 20, 2010)
  IBM today announced innovative new chip-making technology for power-management semiconductors – the company’s first foray into a segment seen as critical to the development of alternative energy sources, smart buildings and new consumer devices.
  
  
• TSMC August 2010 Sales Report (Friday Sep. 10, 2010)
  TSMC today announced its net sales for August 2010: on an unconsolidated basis, net sales were approximately NT$36.5 billion, an increase of 0.9 percent over July 2010 and an increase of 26.3 percent over August 2009.
  
  
• Toppan Completes 22nm and 20nm Production Photomask Process through Toppan-IBM Joint Development (Thursday Sep. 09, 2010)
  Toppan Printing Co., Ltd. today announced that it has developed a photomask manufacturing process at its facility in Asaka, Japan, to support 22nm and 20nm semiconductor device production. This process was developed through Toppan’s ongoing joint development project with IBM. Toppan is ready to support 22nm and 20nm photomask prototyping as well as production for leading-edge semiconductor manufacturing customers.
  
  
• UMC: 2010 August Monthly Sales Revenue (Tuesday Sep. 07, 2010)
  UMC: 2010 August Monthly Sales Revenue
  
  
• Report: Micron to take over SMIC fab (Monday Sep. 06, 2010)
  Micron Technology Inc. is in talks to take over the operations of Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp.'s 300-mm fab in Wuhan, China, according to a report from the Commericial Times.
  
  
• GLOBALFOUNDRIES Lays Out Path for Sustained Technology Leadership at 28nm and Beyond (Thursday Sep. 02, 2010)
  At today’s inaugural Global Technology Conference, GLOBALFOUNDRIES revealed the latest details of its progress in technology development for the 28nm technology generation and beyond. The company announced the addition of a new technology offering based on its 28nm High-K Metal Gate (HKMG) technology and revealed for the first time its manufacturing timeline for the 22/20nm node.
  
  
• GLOBALFOUNDRIES and Freescale Partner to Develop 90nm Flash Memory Technology (Thursday Sep. 02, 2010)
  GLOBALFOUNDRIES and Freescale Semiconductor announced plans to bring a new class of thin film storage (TFS) flash memory products to market on 90nm technology. The advanced technology is expected to be deployed in Freescale microcontrollers (MCUs) targeted for applications ranging from consumer electronics and household appliances to medical devices and smart metering systems.
  
  
• TowerJazz Announces Closing of a Definitive Agreement with its Lender Banks to Refinance and Reduce Its Debt to Improve Its Balance Sheet and Cash Flows (Tuesday Aug. 17, 2010)
  TowerJazz today announced that it has signed and closed a definitive agreement with its lender banks. According to the agreement, approximately $160 million of principal amount were extended and scheduled to be paid in 10 quarterly installments commencing the third quarter of 2013 and ending in the fourth quarter of 2015.
  
  
• TSMC July 2010 Sales Report (Tuesday Aug. 10, 2010)
  TSMC today announced its net sales for July 2010: on an unconsolidated basis, net sales were approximately NT$36.16 billion, an increase of 3.0 percent over June 2010 and an increase of 19.4 percent over July 2009.
  
  
• SMIC Reports Results for the Three Months Ended June 30, 2010 (Tuesday Aug. 10, 2010)
  SMIC today announced its consolidated results of operations for the three months ended June 30, 2010. Revenue up by 8.4% to $381.1 million in 2Q10 from $351.7 million in 1Q10 and up by 42.5% compared to 2Q09.
  
  
• SMIC 65-nm Technology Successfully Moves to Volume Production (Wednesday Aug. 04, 2010)
  SMIC announced today that its Low Leakage 65-nanometer (nm) technology, implemented at SMIC's 300mm facility in Beijing, has successfully moved to Volume Production Stage. The 65-nm accumulative wafer shipment has achieved over 10,000 pieces since its mass production began in Q3 2009.
  
  
• TSMC Reports Second Quarter EPS of NT$1.55 (Thursday Jul. 29, 2010)
  TSMC today announced consolidated revenue of NT$104.96 billion, net income of NT$40.28 billion, and diluted earnings per share of NT$1.55 (US$0.24 per ADS unit) for the second quarter ended June 30, 2010.
  
  
• TSMC Begins Construction on Gigafab In Central Taiwan (Friday Jul. 16, 2010)
  TSMC today held a groundbreaking ceremony in Taichung’s Central Taiwan Science Park for Fab 15, TSMC’s third 12-inch (300mm) Gigafab and an important milestone in the company’s pledge to expand investment in Taiwan.
  
  
• UMC Obtains Advanced Process Tools through Texas Instruments (Thursday Jul. 15, 2010)
  UMC today announced it will further increase its production capacity with the purchase of numerous advanced 300mm CMOS manufacturing tools. The tools will be bought from Texas Instruments (TI) upon closure of a larger asset purchase in Japan that was just announced by TI.
  
  
• CEA-Leti Building Europe’s First 300mm R&D Line Dedicated to 3D-Integration Applications (Monday Jul. 12, 2010)
  
  
  
• TSMC June 2010 Sales Report (Friday Jul. 09, 2010)
  TSMC today announced its net sales for June 2010: on an unconsolidated basis, net sales were approximately NT$35.11 billion, an increase of 3.8 percent over May 2010 and an increase of 36.2 percent over June 2009.
  
  
• TowerJazz Licenses Its Y-Flash Non-Volatile Memory Technology to a Leading Digital Foundry (Wednesday Jun. 30, 2010)
  TowerJazz announced today that it has licensed its Y-Flash Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) technology to a worldwide leading digital foundry. TowerJazz’s Y-Flash cell will be used by this foundry as a building block for its own process modules to enhance its current offering and modify it for implementation in a variety of technology nodes.
  
  
• IBM, Samsung and GLOBALFOUNDRIES Set for Fab Synchronization to Produce Advanced Chips Based on 28nm Process Technology with STMicroelectronics (Thursday Jun. 24, 2010)
  IBM, Samsung Electronics, Co., Ltd., GLOBALFOUNDRIES and STMicroelectronics said today that the four companies are collaborating to synchronize semiconductor manufacturing facilities for the production of advanced chips based on 28nm process jointly developed by IBM Technology Alliance.
  
  
• Elpida, PTI, and UMC Partner on 3D IC Integration Development For Advanced Technologies Including 28nm (Monday Jun. 21, 2010)
  Elpida, PTI, and UMC today announced their entry into a 3-way cooperation to advance 3D IC integration technologies for advanced processes including 28 nanometer (nm). This collaboration will leverage the strengths of Elpida's DRAM, PTI's assembly, and UMC's foundry logic technologies to develop a total 3D IC Logic+DRAM integration solution.
  
  
• TSMC New Standard Cell Slim Library Reduces Logic Area 15% (Tuesday Jun. 15, 2010)
  TSMC today introduced the first Slim Library that reduces system-on-chip (SoC) routed logic block area by 15 percent compared to blocks routed through current standard cell libraries. The library targets TSMC's 65nm LP process technology and fits existing implementation flows for easy adoption.
  
  
• Samsung Electronics Qualifies Foundry Industry's First 32nm Low Power High-K Metal Gate Logic Process and Design Ecosystem (Friday Jun. 11, 2010)
  Samsung Electronics today announced that its foundry business, Samsung Foundry, has qualified 32nm low-power (LP) process with high-k metal gate (HKMG)* technology. The process has successfully completed reliability testing at Samsung Foundry's 300-millimeter logic fabrication line, the S Line, in Giheung, Korea and, is now ready for production of customer designs.
  
  
• TSMC Unveils Two New Reference Flows (Tuesday Jun. 08, 2010)
  TSMC today introduced Reference Flow 11.0 and Analog/Mixed Signal (AMS) Reference Flow 1.0. Both are key collaborative components of TSMC's recently-announced extension of its Open Innovation Platform™.
  
  
• TSMC Extends Open Innovation Platform(TM) (Monday Jun. 07, 2010)
  TSMC today extended its Open Innovation Platform™ with another focus on system-level design, analog/mixed-signal (AMS)/RF design and two-dimensional/three-dimensional integrated circuit (2-D/3-D IC) implementation. At the same time the company introduced the first three initiatives from the new focus.
  
  
• GLOBALFOUNDRIES Expands Worldwide Manufacturing Capacity (Tuesday Jun. 01, 2010)
  GLOBALFOUNDRIES today announced plans to expand its global semiconductor manufacturing operations with a series of new projects across its 300mm operations designed to support expected increases in both near-term and long-term customer demand.
  
  
• TSMC Announces 0.18-Micron Automotive Grade Embedded Flash IP (Thursday May. 27, 2010)
  TSMC today announced the 0.18-um automotive Embedded Flash IP as its second generation Embedded Flash IP that passed AEC-Q100 product qualification requirements for a wide range of automotive applications.
  
  
• TowerJazz to Provide ARM Low Power Libraries for 0.13 SiGe BiCMOS and RF CMOS Platforms (Tuesday May. 25, 2010)
  TowerJazz today announced they will be providing ARM physical IP low power std cells and memory libraries for TowerJazz’s new 0.13u SiGe BiCMOS process (SBL13) and its 0.13u RF CMOS process (TSL13).
  
  
• SMIC Reports Results for the Three Months Ended March 31, 2010 (Tuesday May. 11, 2010)
  SMIC Reports Results for the Three Months Ended March 31, 2010
  
  
• GlobalFoundries hints at further expansion plans (Friday May. 07, 2010)
  GlobalFoundries Inc. (Sunnyvale, Calif.), already at the start of building a $5 billion wafer fab in New York, appears to be getting ready to announce further expansion plans to help it profit from strong demand for foundry manufacturing services.
  
  
• TSMC Reports First Quarter EPS of NT$1.30 (Tuesday Apr. 27, 2010)
  TSMC today announced consolidated revenue of NT$92.19 billion, net income of NT$33.66 billion for the first quarter ended March 31, 2010. Year-over-year, first quarter revenue increased 133.4% while net income increased 2059.5% and diluted EPS increased 2059.8%.
  
  
• SMIC: Announcement of 2009 Annual Results (Tuesday Apr. 27, 2010)
  SMIC announces the audited results of the Company for the year ended December 31, 2009. Sales decreased by 20.9% from US$1,353.7 million for 2008 to US$1,070.4 million for 2009, primarily due to a decrease in overall wafer shipments.