Russia's Sitronics delays 300-mm fab project

Last year, the Russian company talked about a plan to leapfrog generations of semiconductor technology and spark activity that will launch Russia's modern chip industry.

At the time, Sitronics (Moscow) talked about a plan to build a 300-mm fab, equipped with 65- to 45-nm processes. The project, to be called Sitronics Nanotechnology, was supposedly targeted for the 2010 time frame.

However, due to the recession, the project has been ''postponed,'' according to a company representative, who said the fab project is now targeted for the ''2012'' time frame.

The company denied that it will scrap the project. ''We are not backing away from the project,'' the company representative said.

Sitronics plans to allocate the funding for the 300-mm project in 2010, the company said. This, in turn, will push out the project at least until 2012, the company said.

Instead of the 300-mm fab, Sitronics (Moscow) on Thursday (July 9) announced its intention to commence the construction of smaller 90-nm semiconductor fab in cooperation with the Russian Corp. of Nanotechnologies (Rusnano).

That is said to be a 200-mm plant. At the same time, Sitronics intends to acquire a license from STMicroelectronics NV for the 90-nm process.

As part of the joint venture, Rusnano has approved up to RUR 6.5 billion ($204.7 million) for the project. Sitronics is planning to provide the equipment. The chip unit is part of the JSC Sitronics group, which includes companies manufacturing communications gear, microelectronics components and systems and IT products.