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joshxdr
Fore example, I work in a fab that makes niche mixed-signal SOCs using 0.5um ...
EFosters
"Megafoundries" are only needed to service a few, monster markets like ...
Chinese foundry gets makeover, new ID
Junko Yoshida
3/19/2013 2:45 PM EDT
Room to grow
XMC is a foundry with 300-mm wafers, saddled with no legacy of old 200-mm wafers.
XMC has two fab shells, each with a capacity of 30,000 wafers per month. While the company currently uses only one shell, it has the capacity to handle 60,000 wafers per month in total when fully equipped.
Today, XMC is churning out 12,000 wafers per month, “90 percent of which are filled,” said Lange. “We don’t believe in ‘build it, they will come.’ We are ramping up our capacity based on partner engagements,” explained Lange.
Lange claimed that the foundry has been doubling its revenue since 2006, and “we are already cash flow positive.”
So, who are XMC’s customers?
Spansion has been working with XMC since 2008, with XMC doing both 60-nm and 45-nm productions for Spansion’s NOR Flash. XMC also recently announced a long-term supply agreement with GigaDevice, a Beijing-based, red hot NOR flash company, poised to grow its business worldwide.
XMC has another partner, whose identity the foundry declined to disclose. This unnamed partner alone, however, is using up to10,000 wafers per month, according to Lange.
Due to its customization strategy, XMC won’t be able to serve hundreds of customers, but the company appears to have several more “partners.”
XMC’s current products include 60-45nm MirrorBit NOR Flash and 90-65nm ETOX NOR Flash. The company claims to have equipment capacity to support logic and memory down to 32nm. XMC also has a new specialty technology line to support 3D IC (Wafer backside processing and stacking).
Click on image to enlarge.
XMC is a foundry with 300-mm wafers, saddled with no legacy of old 200-mm wafers.
XMC has two fab shells, each with a capacity of 30,000 wafers per month. While the company currently uses only one shell, it has the capacity to handle 60,000 wafers per month in total when fully equipped.
Today, XMC is churning out 12,000 wafers per month, “90 percent of which are filled,” said Lange. “We don’t believe in ‘build it, they will come.’ We are ramping up our capacity based on partner engagements,” explained Lange.
Lange claimed that the foundry has been doubling its revenue since 2006, and “we are already cash flow positive.”
So, who are XMC’s customers?
Spansion has been working with XMC since 2008, with XMC doing both 60-nm and 45-nm productions for Spansion’s NOR Flash. XMC also recently announced a long-term supply agreement with GigaDevice, a Beijing-based, red hot NOR flash company, poised to grow its business worldwide.
XMC has another partner, whose identity the foundry declined to disclose. This unnamed partner alone, however, is using up to10,000 wafers per month, according to Lange.
Due to its customization strategy, XMC won’t be able to serve hundreds of customers, but the company appears to have several more “partners.”
XMC’s current products include 60-45nm MirrorBit NOR Flash and 90-65nm ETOX NOR Flash. The company claims to have equipment capacity to support logic and memory down to 32nm. XMC also has a new specialty technology line to support 3D IC (Wafer backside processing and stacking).
Click on image to enlarge.
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truekop
3/19/2013 4:04 PM EDT
If they are doing straight cmos from 0.35 to 65...i see this venture to be a gross failure...unless they invest R and D and look at doing non standard stuff line SiGe BiCMOS or GaN...this venture will get eaten by the likes of TSMC, GloFo....
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junko.yoshida
3/19/2013 6:04 PM EDT
They know it. That's exactly why Lange, ex-IBMer and now at XMC, is saying that's not what the new foundry will do. Instead, XMC is focused on selected customers, forge "partnerships" (a la IBM Common Platform), customize process, and develop "technology with a twist" for that partner, as he put it.
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EFosters
3/20/2013 12:56 PM EDT
"Megafoundries" are only needed to service a few, monster markets like smartphones and tablets. There you have to scale and bleeding edge technology to make the cheapest memories or processors to serve huge volume orders. It is a total commodity play. There's a lot more innovation in the semiconductor industry than just pushing Moore's Law and I think XMC and others realize this.
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joshxdr
3/20/2013 9:47 PM EDT
Fore example, I work in a fab that makes niche mixed-signal SOCs using 0.5um CMOS. Some customers have very specific requirements and very small volumes. You don't need to be TSMC to make money.
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