Alpha and Omega Semiconductor Announces Agreement for Venture in China

Alpha and Omega Semiconductor Limited (AOS), a designer, developer and global supplier of a broad range of power semiconductors and power ICs, announced that it has entered into a preliminary agreement with the state authority of Chongqing, China, to form a joint venture for a new state-of-the-art power semiconductor manufacturing facility in the Liangjiang New Area of Chongqing.

Under the proposed agreement, the initial capitalization of the joint venture is expected to be approximately $300 million. The Chongqing authority would own 49% of the venture's equity and invest in cash. AOS would own 51% of the equity and contribute primarily its existing assembly and testing equipment as well as certain intellectual property related to the operation of the facility.

"We are excited that this joint venture with the authority of Chongqing offers the prospect of creating new competitive advantages that can fuel growth for both Chongqing and AOS," said Dr. Mike Chang, chairman and CEO of AOS. "We expect the venture to deliver significant cost savings for AOS and allow us to reduce our tangible assets as well as drive meaningful improvements in working capital and capital expenditures. We believe this partnership will open doors to new customers and expand our sales in China, and particularly in the Chongqing area. The venture represents an important step in our continuing strategy to improve long-term profitability by accelerating growth, reducing costs, and diversifying our offerings of power semiconductor products."

The joint venture is expected to begin manufacturing operations in 2017. AOS will gradually move its assembly and testing equipment from the company's existing facility in Shanghai to the lower-cost Chongqing region. We expect our AOS Shanghai will continue as a company's supply chain management center and technology center for high-value products. At a later date, the joint venture expects to construct a 12-inch fabrication facility that is suited for the production of power semiconductors.

The parties are negotiating a definitive joint venture agreement setting forth in more detail the financial and business terms, as well as the timeline, of the proposed project, which is expected to be a multi-year commitment divided into several stages. The execution of the joint venture agreement will be subject to various conditions, including the relevant government agency review and approval.

Japan Shares Minimal Fab Technology with Vietnam

Vietnam's Hi-tech Park in Ho Chi Minh City and a Japanese partner recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding to study and improve a new semiconductor production system called Minimal Fab technology, Vietnam Net reported.

Vietnam is the first country to access the new technology that Japanese scientists introduced to the country in 2012.

As part of the partnership, the Japanese Minimal Fab Development Association will train two researchers from the Saigon Hi-tech Park (SHTP)'s Research and Development Centre for up to two years before transferring the Minimal Fab technology to the SHTP.

A Minimal Fab utilizes a 12.5mm production unit with a production line that costs about $5 million. It enables the small-scale production of wafers, sensors and chips used in electronic devices including phones, tablets, air conditioners and washing machines.

Helping to eliminate the need for a cleanroom is a localized cleaning technology with a Minimal Shuttle, a sealed conveyance container. With this, capital investment in production equipment is reduced to as much as 1/1,000.

Tat Thanh Cang, vice chair of the municipal People's Committee, emphasized that the semiconductor industry is one of the city's four key sectors. He also said that Vietnamese small- and medium-sized enterprises will benefit from the Minimal Fab model, adding that the project will help improve the development of the national semiconductor industry.

The Saigon Times quoted Ngo Duc Hoang, deputy director of SHTP's Research and Development Centre, as saying that the city should invest not just in the small-scale Minimal Fab technology but also in Saigon Industry Corporation's large-scale ship factory project in order to boost large-scale chip production in the city.

Chip manufacturing is costly because chips have to be fabricated overseas after domestic design, according to the Integrated Circuits Design Research & Education Centre of the Vietnam National University HCMC.

The chair of the Minimal Fab Development Association, Yasuyuki Harada, pointed out that Minimal Fab is state-of-the-art and that human resources training is critical in applying the said technology.

A total of 100 Minimal Fab units have already been completed by the Japanese partner, which has also developed semiconductor devices from the equipment. Vietnam is set to receive the completed Minimal Fab technology within three years.

Semiconductor Research Corporation Expands Research

Marking an industry first for emerging electronics devices, Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) announced a significant expansion of its benchmarking research — a unique program that evaluates the relative capabilities of new and emerging computing devices.

SRC, the world’s leading university-research consortium for semiconductor technologies, is managing the initiative through its Nanoelectronics Research Initiative (SRC-NRI) and STARnet Research programs. The research will be led by the Georgia Institute of Technology’s Azad Naeemi, associate professor, Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

“Benchmarking guides university research funded through SRC — enabling concise communication of research outcomes, focusing researchers’ attention on key technical challenges and sparking invention,” said Tom Theis, executive director of SRC-NRI. “Professor Naeemi’s research is expected to take benchmarking of emerging devices to a new level of sophistication.”

Evaluating the performance of devices in representative “benchmark” circuits is a well-established engineering practice in the semiconductor industry. However, this new program is the first to develop a comparable methodology for evaluating the relative capabilities of emerging devices.

These emerging devices include, for example, transistor-like “steep slope” devices that can operate at very low voltage and, therefore, very low power, and non-volatile magnetic devices that combine the functions of logic and memory. The new devices operate by a variety of principles fundamentally different from those governing the operation of established silicon field-effect transistor technology.

In recent years, benchmarking of these devices has steadily increased in rigor. The Georgia Tech team — selected by a group of SRC member companies supporting the initiative including IBM, Intel Corporation, Micron Technology and Texas Instruments — will build on this foundation.

“This research will also enable selection of the most promising emerging devices for technology transfer to SRC member companies and for continued development in future SRC research programs,” said Gilroy Vandentop, executive director of STARnet Research.

Besides maintaining and improving the established benchmarking methodology, the Georgia Tech team is tasked with developing and evaluating benchmark circuits to better understand the potential of new devices for memory arrays, to explore and quantify the value of non-volatility and to measure the impact of various ways of implementing device-to-device connections. Perhaps most challenging, Prof. Naeemi will lead the development of a rigorous benchmarking methodology for non-Boolean (analog) computational circuits being explored for future applications such as artificial neural networks.

“Our team is chartered with maintaining and improving the established benchmarking methodology for emerging devices, evaluating the potential performance of the various SRC-NRI and STARnet devices in the established benchmark circuits,” said Naeemi. “We will incorporate additional device concepts as they emerge through ongoing research, and we will develop additional benchmark circuits to better understand the capabilities of these devices.”

The SRC benchmark program is a two-and-a-half year effort that funds research from July 1, 2015 through the close of 2017.

Vietnamese Chip Companies Open to Global Market

Semiconductor companies in Vietnam got the chance to present their businesses to global producers at a business summit in Hanoi City, Viet Nam News reported.

Organized by Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park (HHTP) and the Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI), the business summit is a meeting between local and foreign companies that aims to boost Vietnam's semiconductor industry. Around 70 participants from China, Singapore, Malaysia and the United States attended the event.

The business mission not only allowed local semiconductor players to interact with global microelectronics developers but also let them talk about Vietnam's policies and investment values as both the government and the local enterprises move to improve the country's semiconductor sector, according to Pham Dai Duong, director of HHTP's management board.

As part of the event, networking sessions were held, as well as a facility tour that involved the introduction of one of the companies operating in HHTP to foreign companies and SEMI.

Kai Fai Ng, SEMI Southeast Asia president, said that Vietnam has entered the radar of foreign investor in the global semiconductor market after two successful business summits. The country has also recently granted investment licenses for three projects, which include a $1.5-billion project for the Saigon Silicon Valley and a $1.4-billion project for Samsung.

Promoting cooperation between the two organizations, the HHTP and SEMI also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).

As part of the MoU, the HHTP will make it easy for SEMI to meet with Vietnam's government agencies and local companies to talk about procedures on how to put up a business in the country. They would also discuss how SEMI could develop partnerships in the semiconductor sector by knowing the challenges and opportunities present in the local market.

Moreover, the deal will enable SEMI to endorse the HHTP to its 1,900 member companies, providing partnerships for local and foreign semiconductor companies and building a conducive environment for the development of semiconductor products in Vietnam.

Founded in 1970, SEMI is a U.S.-based non-profit organization that serves the manufacturing supply chain for the micro- and nano-electronics industries, including semiconductors, flat panel displays, and printed and flexible electronics.

An article posted by PC Mag dubbed Vietnam as the Silicon Valley of Southeast Asia, with its national government pinning hope to the country's technology sector.

Apart from investing heavily in infrastructure, Vietnam has also passed several economic policies to attract both domestic and international entrepreneurs to do business in the country.

Vietnam has a population of more than 90 million with a median age of 30.3, and it currently enjoys a growing number of young engineers, coders, entrepreneurs and students. The young and skilled population is seen to propel technological innovation and economic growth in the country.

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