Tower increases investment in flash partner
Saifun
Semiconductor Business News
(10/13/00, 09:10:41 AM EDT)
MIGDAL HAEMEK, Israel--Silicon foundry supplier Tower Semiconductor Ltd. here
said it has invested $1 million in its flash technology partner, Saifun
Semiconductor Ltd., as part of a $40 million round in private financing at the Israeli
chip company.
"We are confident that Saifun's unique flash technology, co-developed with Tower,
will play a major roll in our planned Fab 2," said Rafi Levin, co-CEO at Tower.
Earlier this week, Tower announced that the Israeli finance minister had
recommended a $250 million government grant to help the silicon foundry build a
new $1.25 billion 8-inch wafer fab in Migdal Haemek, next to its existing 6-inch
plant (see Oct. 11 story). During this year, Tower has signed up investors and
technology partners for the new fab, including pacts with Toshiba, SanDisk,
Alliance Semiconductor, and Macronix International.
Tower and fabless Saifun are jointly developing what they describe as a
revolutionary flash memory technology that delivers significant cost reduction and
smaller die sizes. Last week, Saifun and Tower claimed a new 2-Mbit "NROM"
flash memory demonstrated 10 years of data retention capability (see Oct. 6
story).
In total, Tower has invested $6 million in Saifun, which has a valuation of about
$400 million, according to the Israeli foundry company. |
