Cypress Semiconductor has retained ATREG, a specialist vendor of wafer fabs and other technology assets, to assist the company in selling its 200mm wafer fab in Bloomington, Minnesota.

Cypress has operated the fab since it acquired it from Control Data VTC in 1990.

The automotive-qualified fab has a clean room floor space of 80,000 square feet and is capable of 16,700 wafer starts per month, according to ATREG. The sales agent adds that there is the possibility of a multi-year supply contract back to Cypress and to license process IP for the company.

The fab is currently being used by Cypress Foundry Solutions and operates at manufacturing nodes between 0.35µ and 90nm.

ATREG's marketing description says the fab is accredited by the U.S. government as a "Trusted Foundry" making it suitable for use in some classified and unclassified programs and comes with 416 manufacturing production tools. ATREG also describes the Bloomington wafer fab as one of the only opportunities for a company to add production-volume 200mm manufacturing capacity in the United States.

Tower Semiconductor, a speciality foundry that has acquired manufacturing assets in recent years, has just purchased a 200mm wafer from Maxim Integrated Products.

A spokesperson for Cypress said in an email to EE Times Europe: "Cypress has retained an advisory firm specialising in the disposition of technology manufacturing assets to help facilitate the potential sale of our Fab 4 in Bloomington, Minnesota."

The spokesperson added: "We plan to continue manufacturing at Fab 4 after the sale, so we are looking for a strategic partner—a company that will maintain the high quality, rapid cycle times and superior overall satisfaction we have historically delivered to our customers. With this in mind, we do not have a set timeline for this sale. We have approximately 450 employees at the location, and they are aware of the status reflected in the statement."

By: DocMemory
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