SAN JOSE -- A new breed of ASIC supplier is emerging to leverage third-party fab capacity as the cost of wafer processing becomes more expensive, said Dataquest Inc. here today.
While ASIC companies have historically emphasized wafer-processing technologies as a competitive edge in the marketplace, more are having to pursue foundry strategies, said the research firm.
An example of this shift to foundries was last week's announcement by LSI Logic Corp., which say it will develop 0.13-micron copper process technology with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. and shift more than 30% of its capacity to third-party fabs (see April 5 story). Today, about 6-to-8-% of the LSI Logic's wafers were processed by third-party companies in 2000.
"The key advantage of the 'fabless' ASIC company business model is that it transfers a number of the fixed costs that are associated with a traditional ASIC company to third parties," said Bryan Lewis, chief analyst of ASIC research for Dataquest's Semiconductors Worldwide group. "Those charges are then charged back to the fabless ASIC company in the form of variable costs that occur when a particular facility, such as fabrication or packaging, is used.
"The approach avoids the capital burden of owning foundries and packaging plants and developing process technology," he noted.
Dataquest said the development of e-commerce tools and the rising use of the Internet have provided a global communications and commerce backbone that make it much easier for "fabless ASIC companies" to create "virtual IC delivery teams" from partnerships of independent companies.
