SST And SANYO Pool Resources to Expand Flash Technology Partnership into China
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SST And SANYO Pool Resources to Expand Flash Technology Partnership into China
Thursday November 20, 9:00 pm ET
SST and SANYO Celebrate 10-Year Partnership, Highlight the Success of Their Business Expansion in China
SHANGHAI, China, Nov. 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- SST (Silicon Storage Technology, Inc.) (Nasdaq: SSTI - News), a leader in flash memory technology, and SANYO Electric Co., Ltd. celebrated 10 years of collaboration in flash memory technology today and highlighted plans to continue expanding their businesses into China's burgeoning high-technology sector. As part of the 10-year anniversary celebration, executives from SST and SANYO hosted a press conference today at the Shangri-La Hotel in Shanghai, China along with representatives from their foundry partners in China: Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation(Grace) and Shanghai Hua Hong NEC Electronic Co., Ltd. (HHNEC). The group announced that SST's non-self-aligned SuperFlash is installed and ready for mass production at HHNEC, while the self-aligned SuperFlash technology is installed and ready for mass production at Grace. Both SST and SANYO plan to manufacture high-volume flash-based products on the Grace and HHNEC fabrication lines, thereby providing local Chinese technology companies with high-quality, advanced ICs including SST's memory products and SANYO's embedded products for consumer applications. Furthermore, SST and SANYO reiterated their commitment to continue developing the foundry capabilities of Grace and HHNEC with more advanced process technologies to serve the evolving needs of Chinese design houses and customers worldwide.
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The enduring business relationship between SST and SANYO has included second-sourcing, technology licensing, joint product development and wafer foundry agreements. Over the course of their relationship, hundreds of millions of SST's SuperFlash products have been manufactured by SANYO's foundry.
"Over the past 10 years, SST and SANYO have collaborated in advancing SuperFlash technology scaling and evolving it into the self-aligned second generation memory cell and we are looking forward to many more years of collaboration, taking advantage of SST's SuperFlash technology installed base and SANYO's consumer electronic strength in the market place," said Bing Yeh, president and CEO of SST. "Together, we have been able to make great inroads into the Chinese market by bringing SuperFlash technology and high-volume manufacturing to leading Chinese foundries such as Grace and HHNEC. SST continues to view China as a huge growth opportunity and we, along with SANYO and our Chinese foundry partners, are committed to providing industry leading flash memory technology and products to support the growing need of the Chinese market."
Tadahiko Tanaka, president of SANYO Semiconductor Company, said, "Through our multi-faceted technology agreements with SST, we have been able to successfully incorporate flash memory technology into system solutions for our customers and address new segments of the market through co-developed specialty products for next-generation digital consumer applications. In addition, our relationship with SST has been instrumental in helping us gain a strong foothold in the China technology market. Along with SST, we are currently working with two of the leading fabs in China and are continuing to look for new opportunities to support the region's technology development."
Grace is one of the most prominent, state-of-the-art deep sub-micron wafer fabs in China, and will benefit from the high volume production opportunities leveraged through SST's SuperFlash technology and SANYO's embedded products for consumer applications.
Dr. Nasa Tsai, president of Grace, said, "Having SST's advanced self-aligned SuperFlash technology installed in our fab and with SANYO on board as a high-volume customer shows that our state-of-the-art manufacturing facility is ready to compete on a global scale. As an early investor, SST was an important factor in bringing our foundry plans to reality and we are happy to continue working with them and SANYO."
Peng Fang, president at HHNEC, said, "The SuperFlash architecture is well suited for a wide range of products and we are excited to implement the 0.25 micron technology to continue to help our customers meet their evolving design goals. In addition, by licensing SST's SuperFlash technology we can expand our capabilities to assist customers in quickly bringing a variety of highly integrated advanced solutions to the Chinese market."
Recently, SST announced it had installed and licensed 0.25 micron embedded SuperFlash technology at HHNEC. HHNEC will serve as a foundry for embedded flash products based on SST's SuperFlash technology, including products designed by SANYO as well as China-based and abroad design houses. |
