X-FAB Silicon Foundries and MEMS Foundry Itzehoe GmbH (MFI) announced this week they will join forces to address the market for high-volume MEMS fabrication and will combine their existing MEMS foundry capabilities and resources. X-FAB acquired a 25.5-percent shareholding of MFI, subject to antitrust approval, with the option to become the majority shareholder at a later date. X-FAB said that it is targeting sales of $50 million per year through this partnership.
X-FAB said that the partnership will open up new business opportunities for both companies and complements their existing technical capabilities and manufacturing capacities. X-FAB also states that the partnership will accelerate its rapid expansion in high-volume MEMS manufacturing. MFI, a contract manufacturer for MEMS and spin-off from Fraunhofer Institute for Silicon Technology (ISIT), will gain access to X-FAB's analog and mixed-signal silicon foundry and MEMS device manufacturing services.
"We see a huge business potential in this cooperation," said Hans-Jürgen Straub, CEO of X-FAB. "With such excellent partners as the MFI and Fraunhofer, we form a powerful force offering a unique set of MEMS technologies. With strong demand and our combined resources, we aim to increase our annual MEMS revenue to more than $50 million in the next five years."
In addition to the recently announced expansion of X-FAB's 8-inch MEMS foundry, the agreement should also extend X-FAB's MEMS capabilities across a wide range of 8-inch MEMS technologies for MEMS development and manufacturing that complement X-FAB's foundry services. In 2010, X-FAB had more than $12 million in MEMS revenues, and has manufactured approximately 1 billion MEMS devices to date.
MFI, established in 2009, is active within Fraunhofer's wafer fabrication facility in Itzehoe. It has experience in process industrialization for MEMS products and offers manufacturing technologies on 8-inch wafers for micromachined devices including inertial sensors, micro-mirrors and RF MEMS, wafer-level packaging techniques for wafer-to-wafer and chip-to-wafer bonding as well as TSV technologies.
"With this joint cooperation we will close the gap between microelectronics and pure MEMS foundry services and establish an outstanding technology bundle," said Dr. Peter Merz, CEO of MFI.
MFI works closely with Fraunhofer ISIT, a center for MEMS research and development, and has developed a track record of converting the results of research projects between Fraunhofer ISIT and industrial partners into a commercial, volume manufacturing environment. MFI will maintain close ties to Fraunhofer ISIT.
"Commercialization of MEMS and creation of new market opportunities are key targets for Fraunhofer ISIT," said Professor Wolfgang Benecke, ISIT's Managing Director. "The alliance of MFI and X-FAB, along with the state-of-art 8-inch R&D capabilities of Fraunhofer ISIT on-site, creates boundless new possibilities in MEMS. Our partnership is unique worldwide."
X-FAB is an analog and mixed-signal foundry group manufacturing silicon wafers for analog-digital integrated circuits (mixed-signal ICs). X-FAB maintains wafer production facilities in Erfurt and Dresden (Germany), Lubbock, Texas (US), and Kuching, Sarawak (Malaysia), and employs approximately 2,400 people worldwide. Wafers are manufactured based on advanced modular CMOS and BiCMOS processes with technologies ranging from 1.0 to 0.18 micrometers, for applications primarily in the automotive, communications, consumer and industrial sectors.
The MEMS Foundry Itzehoe GmbH (MFI) offers MEMS manufacturing services using an 8-inch wafer line. MFI was established in 2009 as a spin-off from the Fraunhofer Institute for Silicon Technology (ISIT) and is located within the same wafer fabrication facility in Itzehoe,Germany.
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