Brazil's Ceitec inks CMOS deal with X-FAB

X-FAB Silicon Foundries and the Excellence Center for Advanced Electronic Technology (Ceitec) have entered a licensing agreement for semiconductor manufacturing in Brazil.

Under terms of the agreement, the government-backed Ceitec will license X-FAB's advanced 0.6?m process technology called XC06, to establish the first commercial CMOS semiconductor front-end manufacturing operation in Brazil. In return, X-FAB will gain access to the emerging and fast-growing Latin American electronics market. Small volume manufacturing and prototyping will take place at Ceitec's fab in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and larger volumes will be manufactured by X-FAB in its facilities in Erfurt, Germany and Texas, USA.

Ceitec is part of a Brazilian-government-sponsored effort to develop a domestic microelectronics industry. As part of this effort, seven chip design centers have been created, which now have direct access to Brazil's first semiconductor front-end wafer fab that will use the XC06 technology. Ceitec's 0.6?m process will be fully compatible with X-FAB's XC06 process.

The XC06 process technology from X-FAB features a large variety of primitive devices including high-voltage transistors and integrated non-volatile memories to address a wide range of analog/mixed-signal design needs for automotive, industrial and power management applications, with possible extensions for opto and MEMS. Ceitec's XC06 process will be supported by the X-FAB design kit, which includes parametric cells; corner and Monte Carlo modeling capabilities, I/O-, digital- and analog libraries.

"This technology will enable us to establish commercial front-end semiconductor manufacturing domestically in Brazil, to help meet the fast-growing demand here for semiconductor chips," said Sélrgio Souza Dias, Ceitec's president.

"Ceitec is pioneering IC design and front-end semiconductor manufacturing in Latin America, and we greatly value the opportunity to establish X-FAB's processes for analog/mixed-signal ICs in this highly strategic market," said Thomas Hartung, vice president of sales and marketing at X-FAB. "We are pleased that our technology can help Ceitec accelerate its efforts in Brazil especially for automotive, industrial and power management applications."