Russia's Sitronics mulls 45nm on 300mm plant

Russian telecom and consumer equipment provide JSC Sitronics has reportedly started a project to develop chip manufacturing at the 65nm to 45nm nodes on 300mm wafers, according to a CNews.

The project was approved recently by the Investment Committee at the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade and recommended to be submitted to the government, the report said. It is also estimated that Sitronic, which owns chipmaker JSC Mikron, would have to spend more than $2.3 billion on building a production facility.

The project was discussed at an Sochi-2007 investment forum and the company plans to start construction of a 300mm wafer fab in January 2008 and chip production to begin in October 2009. However, there was no discussion of how the process technology would be sourced.

Sitronics proposed that the wafer fab should belong to a joint venture owned 51 percent by Sitronics and 49 percent by the Russian government, the report said. Meanwhile Mikron is pushing ahead with its cooperation with STMicroelectronics NV and is in the process of qualifying 180nm CMOS process. This slated by the end of 2007 with mass production beginning in 2008.

- Peter Clarke
EE Times Europe