SkyWater Expands Foundry Customer Base
Pure-plat fab is assigned the technology foundry contracts and customers from Cypress Semiconductor
SkyWater Technology Foundry has been assigned the Specialty Foundry customer relationships from Cypress Semiconductor. The customer relationships were already being serviced within SkyWater's 200mm semiconductor wafer manufacturing facility (purchased from Cypress earlier this year). Through this new transaction, SkyWater assumes ownership of Cypress' current embedded Specialty Foundry customer engagements and adds associated business management personnel.
Within SkyWater's manufacturing facility there are a wide variety of technologies currently being developed and manufactured - from superconducting quantum computers to advanced technology Readout IC's (ROIC), MEMS-based infrared imagers, DNA sequencing and fabrication platforms, SOI, and photonic integrated circuit (PIC) devices.
"This transaction builds upon the concept of a Technology Foundry, which enables customers to design, build, and scale their products by simplifying the realisation of complex technologies through access to semiconductor technology, experienced personnel and volume manufacturing capabilities," said SkyWater chairman of the board Gary Obermiller. "The addition of the Specialty Foundry customers is synergistic with our pure-play Technology Foundry model; customers come to us with their ideas and we transform them into practice through the application of our differentiated semiconductor technology and operational expertise."
The Technology Foundry Business model enables customers to design and optimise their product concepts. In tandem with SkyWater's advanced wafer manufacturing facility, customers are able to prototype and rapidly scale to production volumes, all inside of a high-yield production fab.
"The Specialty Foundry Business was created in 2008 with the vision of providing advanced development access to a high-volume production-scale fab, building on the site's proven track record of success in bringing new technologies to production," said Michael Moore, executive vice president of sales and marketing at SkyWater. "It's in our DNA. We've been doing development work at this site for decades, right alongside production. This move is a natural next step for the company and our customers. We have successfully diversified the customer base this way, by serving new and unique markets that are poised for rapid growth."
As part of the assignment, which closed October 2, SkyWater will now have direct responsibility for all Specialty Foundry Business customers, eliminating the prior Cypress interface. Because of the existing working relationship between all parties, there will be a seamless transition for all current projects; the same team will continue working with all existing customers, the only difference being that they are now SkyWater employees.
According to SkyWater's senior director of sales Brad Ferguson: "These types of technology engagements just start with a simple conversation about our capabilities, and once Customers see the potential of our Technology Foundry solution, they realise this is the right place to transform their concepts into a manufactured product."
