Taiwan's SiS bucks outsourcing trend, ramps up 0.15-micron process
Company also rolls out PC-on-a-chip line
By Mark LaPedus
Semiconductor Business News
(10/02/01 15:56 p.m. EST)
SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- Continuing to buck the IC outsourcing trend, Taiwan's Silicon Integrated Systems Corp. (SiS) is ramping up its new 0.15-micron process within its wafer fab and has rolled out the first chip products based on this technology.
The Taipei-based company is also quietly sampling the first in a family of PC-on-a-chip products. Dubbed the SiS550, the 0.18-micron chip consists of a Pentium-level microprocessor, 2D graphics, flash-memory, and other components on the same device. The chip includes an x86-based core from Rise Technology Co., as part of a licensing agreement between the two companies.
SiS has been working on the SiS550 device for some time. The company will initially target the SiS550 for the Japanese market, but it will also push the device in Taiwan and other regions, said Shing Wong, senior vice president and general manager of U.S. operations for SiS. The company's U.S. office is located in Sunnyvale.
"The SiS550 is for the embedded markets," Wong said. "The device is aimed for Internet appliances and thin clients," he said in an interview.
The PC-on-a-chip device, along with the vast majority of SiS' chip sets and other products, are made in its own--and somewhat controversial--wafer fab in Hsinchu.
For some time, SiS' manufacturing strategy has raised plenty of eyebrows in the industry, especially given the high costs of maintaining a fab during the current IC downturn and the overcapacity situation in the silicon foundry business.
Until 1999, SiS was a fabless IC design house that relied on various silicon foundries to make its chips. While the company still relies on foundries to a small degree--including Singapore's Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Pte. Ltd. and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd.--SiS decided to control its own distiny and buck the chip outsourcing trend in the late 1990s.
Reportedly tired of being put on allocation by its various foundries over the years, SiS two years ago broke ground on its initial wafer fab. The wafer processing plant is an eight-inch, 0.25- to 0.18-micron fab capable of making 20,000 wafers a month.
This strategy differs from its fabless chip set rivals in Taiwan--Acer Laboratories Inc. and Via Technologies Inc., which rely on foundries, according to analysts.
Meanwhile, since SiS' fab went into pilot production in March of 2000, the company has reportedly been losing money, due to the under utilization of the plant and the downturn in the PC industry, according to analysts.
On the bright side, SiS' September sales soared 51% year-over-year and 12% sequentially to $26.3 million. Sales for the year have increased 32% to $210.8 million, the company said in a statement today.
SiS, which is licensed by Intel Corp. to design and manufacture Pentium 4-compliant chipsets, said that September sales surged thanks to "the on-time delivery of [our] first P4 chipset, the SiS 645, and the increasing volume shipment of [our] graphics chip, SiS315."
But still, SiS insists the company has no intention of scrapping the fab in spite of current business conditions. The plant gives SiS a "competitive advantage" over its PC chip set rivals, including Acer Laboratories, Via Technologies, and others, according to Wong. "It raises the bar in the industry," Wong explained. "Our manufacturing technology raises the bar for our integrated solutions."
The SiS executive referred to the company's core business--integrated chip sets, which combines core logic, graphics, and communications components on the same device.
The company's integrated chip set lines are "high-transistor-count" products, based on 0.18-micron technologies and below. These processes, according to Wong, are still not readily available among the foundries in spite of the overcapacity situation in the market. "0.18-micron technology is still tight in the market right," Wong said. "0.15-micron technology is also tight."
As a result, SiS will maintain its fab, and, in fact, is currently migrating the plant from 0.18- to 0.15-micron geometries. Late last month, SiS rolled out one of its first 0.15-micron products--the SiS 650, which is an integrated Pentium 4-compliant chip set with graphics (see Sept. 24 story ).
SiS is also developing its own 0.13-micron technology. Pilot production is set for the second half of 2002. Production is set for 2003, according to Wong.
EBN, which is also owned by CMP Media, contributed to this story |
