Foundry venture SSMC to spend $250 million in '04
By Mark LaPedus
Silicon Strategies
01/14/2004, 7:50 PM ET
SINGAPORE--Systems on Silicon Manufacturing Corp. (SSMC), a foundry venture in Singapore, today (January 14, 2004) said it plans to spend $250 million to expand its overall fab capacity in 2004.
SSMC--a joint venture between Philips Semiconductors, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC) and the Economic Development Board (EDB) of Singapore--also plans to develop a 0.14-micron process within its 8-inch fab here.
With the $250 million investment, SSMC plans to increase its fab output to 33,000 200-mm wafers per month in the near-term. The capital investment will be used mainly for equipment purchases, which will enable long-term capacity expansion of up to 40,000 wafers per month, according to SSMC.
The present manufacturing capacity of 24,000 wafers per month is fully booked and the fab currently enjoys a 95-to-100 percent utilization rate. SSMC was officially open for business in 2001 (see May 23, 2001 story).
"We expect SSMC to continue to be profitable in the foreseeable future, performing even better in 2004 than in 2003," said Fred Rausch, CEO of SSMC, in a statement. "This is because of the combination of high demand from customers in all of our market sectors, and an extremely efficient manufacturing operation. "
"SSMC has made significant progress in the semiconductor market since its inception in 1998," said Ajit Manocha, senior vice president of Philips Semiconductors, in a statement. "It has constantly challenged itself to set new benchmarks in the industry, with the latest being the introduction of embedded flash technologies," he said.
"Since the initial mass production in 0.25-micron, SSMC is now moving on to 0.14-micron technology which is targetted for mass production in 2004. Through this arrangement, SSMC will now be able to provide our customers with both advanced production capacity in CMOS18 and below technology, as well as leading edge fabrication processes," he added.
The move is part of an effort by TSMC to expand its fab capacity. Last month, the board of directors of TSMC approved a capital appropriation of $1.43 billion for capacity expansion in Taiwan (see December 2, 2003 story). |
