SMIC's second and third fabs start production

SHANGHAI, China --- Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp.(SMIC), a Chinese wafer foundry moving ahead aggressively in manufacturing, has announced that its second and third wafer fabs have just started manufacturing integrated circuits.

Fab-2 is expected to be at a level of production of 7000 wafer starts per month by the end of the year and Fab-3, which SMIC asserts is the first Chinese wafer fab to have copper interconnect capability, is expected to be producing 5000 wafers per month by the end of the year, the company said.

The combination of SMIC's three active wafer fabs will give it a production capability of 30,000 wafers per month by the end of the year, on a 0.18-micron logic process. But SMIC is moving towards 0.13-micron minimum geometry manufacturing and is able to offer copper interconnection technology and in-house mask making services.

The announcement of the extra fabs coming online was made at a party held today (September 26, 2002) to celebrate the first anniversary of the company's Fab-1. And it came a day after SMIC confirmed industry reports that it would be involved in a new 200-mm wafer fab planned in Beijing (see September 25 story) and said that it would work with ARM Holdings plc helping customers to produce circuits based on the original ARM "Thumb" RISC processor, the ARM7TDMI (see other September 25 story).

During a speech made at the party Richard Chang, SMIC's president and chief executive officer said SMIC has three competitive advantages in China.

First, SMIC had entered the Chinese market at the right time, two years earlier than its direct competitors. Second, SMIC has strong research teams, management and partnerships -- with Toshiba and Fujitsu in Japan, Chartered Semiconductor in Singapore, and IMEC in Europe. Third, SMIC has effectively integrated the technologies transferred from its partners to meet customers' needs. Right now, SMIC is able to manufacture 24 types of wafers with different processes, and by the end of this year, an increase to 80 types is expected, Chang said.

After one year's operation, Fab-1 has reached production levels of 15,000 wafers per month, and is expected to reach 25,000 wafers per month by the end of the year. Fab-2 has finished equipment move-in and begun production in September. Fab-3 is designed to support customers who require advanced copper process. It is expected to reach its production targets of 5000 wafers per month at the end of the year, the company said.