Cypress Builds Joint Design Facility with India College

Cypress Semiconductor Corp. announced that the Cypress University Alliance is teaming up with Nuva College of Engineering and Technology in Nagpur, India, to establish a next-generation academic design facility.

Students and faculty will have access to Cypress's full suite of PSoC (programmable SoC) and EZ-USB FX2LP USB2.0 controller software tools and development kits for teaching and research.

The facility will also provide easy access to Cypress-sponsored training, technical support and curriculum development assistance. PSoC's integrated MCU, highly configurable analog and digital peripherals, and full set of development tools make it a suitable learning tool for developing mixed-signal embedded design skills.

Nuva also plans to participate in the Cypress Innovator Design Challenge in 2009, a regional, multi-discipline engineering design contest open to all undergraduate and graduate engineering students currently enrolled in an accredited university. The contest's goal is to challenge students to stretch their imaginations as they develop new and novel ways to utilize Cypress technologies such as the PSoC.

Intel Upgrading Rio Rancho Facility

Intel Corp. is in the midst of a $1.5 billion upgrade of its existing Fab 11X in Rio Rancho to the company's most advanced manufacturing technology. The scale of the upgrade is staggering.

Currently, 1,000 tradesmen and 200-300 construction managers are working on the project, which began in June 2007 and will continue through January. Most of the workers are local and about one-third of them have worked on previous projects at the plant.

In the past 12 years, Intel has invested more than $13 billion in capital for this site. The latest upgrade is primarily to the 45-nanometer process to manufacture smaller, more powerful and energy-efficient chips. The project requires an upgrade of Fab 11X's roughly 280,000-square-foot cleanroom to the highest ultrapure standard.

While in the midst of this major 45-nanometer conversion, Intel continues high-volume manufacturing on (older) 90-nanometer (technology).

Advanced Integration Technologies (AIT) Expands Cebu, Philippines Facility

An American company has expanded its facility in Cebu to cater to increasing demands in the global semiconductor and solar power-based industries.

Advanced Integration Technologies (AIT), developer and supplier of modules and subsystems for semiconductor assemblies and solar flat panels, invested half a million dollars to open a 12,000-square feet facility at the Mactan Economic Zone, its second facility in Cebu.

AIT, which is mainly a contract manufacturer, opened a 3,000-square feet “pilot facility” last year at the economic zone. By September, AIT expects to deliver its first shipment from Cebu. It expects to export a total of $1.5 million worth of products for 2008.

Besides importing raw materials, AIT has contracted manufacturers in Cebu and Manila to supply them with other component parts needed for production.

US Navy Selects GeneSiC for New Phase I and Phase II SBIR Awards.

GeneSiC Semiconductor Inc., a key innovator of novel Silicon Carbide (SiC) devices for high temperature, high power, ultra-high voltage, and detector applications, announces that it has been selected by the US Navy for two Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) awards. These awards will allow GeneSiC to develop high voltage SiC devices that are critical for enabling the integration of high power RADARs, Directed Energy Weapons (DEW) and ship propulsion systems with the modern on-board power sources.

The Projects awarded to GeneSiC are:

The success achieved by GeneSiC in its previous Phase I SBIR project has prompted the US Navy's Naval Surface Warfare Center to select its Phase II SBIR proposal for award negotiations. This project is focused on developing multi-kV SiC devices for power conditioning and power distribution systems using legacy and modern ship bus infrastructure.

Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) has completed award formalities on another Phase I SBIR award. This project is focused on the design and fabrication of novel SiC devices for high-frequency, high-power RADAR applications.

GeneSiC continues to rapidly enhance the equipment and personnel infrastructure at its Dulles, Virginia facility. The company is aggressively hiring personnel experienced in compound semiconductor device fabrication, semiconductor testing and detector designs.

Taiwan Semiconductor to Hire up to 5,000 Workers

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, the world's largest custom-chip maker, plans to hire as many as 5,000 workers for two new chip plants it's building in Taiwan at a cost of as much as NT$200 billion (HK$51.30 billion).

At least one of the new plants will be operational next year, Taiwan Semiconductor chief executive officer Rick Tsai said at a ceremony for the new facilities in Hsinchu, Taiwan, the city where it's based.

Taiwan Semiconductor will make chips on wafers measuring 12 inches in diameter at the new plants, phases four and five in the expansion of existing factories, Tsai said.

McIlvaine Company,

Northfield, IL 60093-2743

Tel: 847-784-0012; Fax: 847-784-0061;

E-mail: editor@mcilvainecompany.com;

Web site: www.mcilvainecompany.com