Sipex Corp. has inked a definitive agreement with Hangzhou Silan Microelectronics Co. Ltd. and Hangzhou Silan Integrated Circuit Co. Ltd to turn over its foundry manufacturing, product licenses, process technology transfers and fab equipment sales to Silan.
   
"We are very excited to finalize our agreement," said Ralph Schmitt, CEO of Sipex, in a statement. "We are pleased with the progress of transferring our process technologies to Silan. They have been a great partner to date, and with the formalization of our relationship I expect we will be even more successful together."

Last September, Milpitas, Calif.-based Sipex first announced it was closing shop on its wafer fab due to escalating product needs and said it would move its operations to Silan’s Hangzhou, China, location.

Silan has already seen yielding material out of two different process technologies. The expectation is to complete all process qualifications in this year, according to the Sipex. During the transfer, production at the Sipex Milpitas fab has continued with output.
   
"I want to thank our employees in Milpitas who have kept our fab fully operational during this transition time," said Joel Camarda, senior VP of operations for Sipex, in the same statement. "We continue to need their support as we transition to a fabless company. Silan and Sipex engineers have also been working diligently to ensure that we meet the scheduled transfer. This is critical to ensuring support of our customers."

Silan currently has two 5-inch fab lines that are running 20,000 IC wafers/month, plus 20,000 discrete product wafers per month. The production capacity of the Silan fab will ramp to 34,000 wafers per month, providing Sipex with significant upside potential. The Sipex equipment will be sent to Silan after the transition is complete, giving Silan the ability to increase their output by migrating to the 6-inch equipment.

Sipex and Silan said they expect to further evolve their relationship into other areas, but did not give further details. Additionally, the companies said this will allow for significant leverage in attacking the rapidly growing greater China marketplace.

By: DocMemory
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