initially found on the amat board. a few excerpts culled; url to full release below. can anyone shed any light on what this r&d effort might mean to pri, if anything? i guess i'm wondering if stm's proposed pilot "processes" are independent of pria's bidnez.
SGS-THOMSON Announces Important R&D Initiatives in France and Italy
May 11, 1998 09:09 AM
ST. GENIS, France--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 11, 1998--SGS-THOMSON Microelectronics today announces it will create a new 300mm/12-inch wafer research fab and pilot line at Crolles, near Grenoble, France together with a new advanced research center for non volatile technologies (both stand-alone and embedded memories) in Agrate, near Milano, Italy.
The fabrication processes for integrated circuits (ICs) on 300mm wafers represents a major technological jump to build superintegrated ICs for systems on chip with more than 100 million transistors at a competitive cost.
SGS-THOMSON's site at Crolles, created in 1992 and including the primary R&D and pilot line for logic technology development and a manufacturing facility, is the Company's central development laboratory for logic processes used to create high performance ICs (microprocessors, multimedia, GSM,...). The R&D center and pilot line - "Crolles 1" - has developed the most advanced processes with 200mm wafers, down to 0.18 micron, in collaboration with LETI and France Telecom-CNET in the GRESSI research program, and in partnership with Philips Semiconducteurs.
The new center - "Crolles 2" - will house the research and development and a pilot line for 300mm CMOS and BiCMOS processes. The cost of the project is $500 million, the building will be started in 1999 and the first silicon processed in 2000 in line with the availability of the new advanced 300 mm. processing equipment.
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Crolles 2 is a further stage in the collaboration between SGS-THOMSON and public researchers, who will share common facilities to reduce utilization costs and optimize the efficiency and speed of transferring new technologies.
SGS-THOMSON is participating in European cooperative ventures for research like MEDEA and ESPRIT and is also actively working within the International SEMATECH consortium, based in Austin, Texas, USA, for the research and standardization of technologies and equipment for 300mm wafers.
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