MUNICH -- While much is known about the collaboration to develop 130-nanometer digital CMOS and finer geometry CMOS processes between troubled chip giant Infineon Technologies AG and United Microelectronics Corp., it is a much smaller and profitable Swiss-German company that is helping UMC develop its next mixed-signal CMOS process technology.
Just as the Infineon-UMC 130-nm CMOS logic process enters commercial production, Micronas Semiconductor Holding AG, a maker of television chips and automotive sensors, is collaborating with UMC on a mixed-signal variant of UMC's base-line 130-nm CMOS process technology.
Earlier this year the two companies announced a foundry alliance at 0.18-micron (see June 11 story).
Wolfgang Kalsbach, chief executive officer of Micronas, confirmed the collaboration at 130-nm but declined to give details of when the work had begun, when it would be completed, or how many engineers were being applied to the project.
Kalsbach said that engineers were working on the process both at UMC in Taiwan and in Freiburg, Germany, the location of the company's main wafer fab complex. "With analog and mixed-signal CMOS you have to align the design resources very closely with the process engineers," he said.
Kalsbach played down the significance of the development project saying: "It's not the key focus of the company, but we will be ready when the process is needed. Libraries don't come overnight, and that is particularly true of analog," he said. Kalsbach also said the research collaboration was part of a partnership with UMC that was connected to work between ITT Intermetall and UMC in the mid-1990s.
Micronas, headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, runs a 0.45-micron CMOS process for mixed-signal and analog circuits at its Freiburg wafer fab. The facility belonged to ITT Intermetall, was acquired by Micronas from ITT in October 1997, and is now capable of 20,000 6-inch equivalent wafer starts a month, Kalsbach said.
Micronas has no plans to invest in further manufacturing capability and uses foundries such as UMC for digital circuits, now typically on 0.18-micron CMOS process technologies. The company also uses UMC for some of its mixed-signal requirements, both at 0.45-micron and at 0.18-micron.
"UMC has the same 0.45-micron process technology so we can use it flexibly for outsourcing," said Kalsbach, adding that typically Micronas outsources 30% to 40% of its manufacturing requirement. "As a result we have 95% capacity utilization at Freiburg. About 10% of our mixed-signal is outsourced."
Kalsbach has told shareholders that there is no need for any further major investment in manufacturing capacity and it is not clear that a 130-nanometer analog CMOS or mixed-signal CMOS process could be brought back into the Freiburg wafer fab.
In the company's third quarter to September 30, Micronas recorded sales of about $130 million, up about 14% from the same quarter a year earlier. The company achieved a net profit of about $13.6 million turning around a loss of $2.7 million the same quarter a year before.
