Sematech Seeking Buyers for ATDF
David Lammers, News Editor -- Semiconductor International, 10/12/2007 6:15:00 AM
Sematech (Austin, Texas) is negotiating to sell its Austin fab, the Advanced Technology Development Facility (ATDF) subsidiary, with one interested party being investors who earlier this year bought the Cypress Semiconductor Corp. research lab in San Jose, according to a report in Friday’s Austin American-Statesman.
If successful, the negotiations would set up a combined operation, including the former Cypress lab and the ATDF, serving a variety of customers including nanotechnology researchers, the report said. The state of Texas could designate the ATDF as the official state laboratory for nanotech research under a proposed state program called the Texas Alliance for Nanotechnology.
The ATDF was spun-out as a separate Sematech subsidiary in 2004, and has ~150 customers with >$50M in annual revenues. About 200 people are employed at the fab, although some ATDF staff have recently either been laid off or told that they must be prepared for a move to Albany, N.Y., where Sematech has several of its research programs.
While much of the equipment at ATDF is capable of processing 300 mm wafers, the facility remains classified as a 200 mm fab, while the Albany facility is a modern 300 mm facility. Sematech researchers said that the front-end transistor research work is well-suited to smaller wafers, which are less expensive. However, other sources said later-stage transistor research must be done on 300 mm wafers to prove manufacturing worthiness.
Sematech spokeswoman Anne Englander was quoted as saying that Sematech will continue to do part of its research work at ATDF, regardless of who owns it, but acknowledged that “the focus is for it to explore other avenues” of business. That could include doing fabrication projects for the University of Texas at Austin and others.
The former Cypress Silicon Valley Technology Center was purchased for $53M by Oak Hill Capital Partners (Stamford, Conn.) and Tallwood Venture Capital (Palo Alto, Calif.) at the end of January. The San Jose facility, now called SVTC Technologies, has expanded its support programs this year, signing on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, Hsinchu, Taiwan) as a customer for the SVTC Technologies' incubation service.
The sale of the ATDF facility would be the latest shift in Sematech resources to Albany Nanotech. In May of this year, the state of New York announced that it would provide an additional $300M in funding over five years. Since Sematech first established operations in Albany in 2002, the state has providing 2:1 matching funds for new equipment bought by Sematech, while Texas has limited its support to much smaller grants and loans.
As a result, the lithography, 3-D interconnect and much of the metrology R&D work has moved to Albany in recent years, leaving the transistor front-end program in Austin. The other major activity left in Austin is the International Sematech Manufacturing Initiative (ISMI), a subsidiary that fosters communication about manufacturing efficiency, including the 450 mm wafer standard and the 300 mm “prime” initiative.
Sematech was established in Austin in 1988 after an intense competition among Texas, New York and California. An all-employee meeting was held Friday at Sematech's Austin facility to discuss the ongoing ATDF situation.
