Company Profile
American
Semiconductor, Inc. (ASI) is a U.S. on-shore semiconductor
foundry that develops and commercializes process technology.
ASI provides pure-play low-cost foundry services for all
aspects of wafer fabrication and process development while
avoiding prohibitive manufacturing costs through the
utilization of the SVTC 65nm capable, 200mm wafer fab. Wafer
fabrication services are provided by ASI for Flexfet™ SOI CMOS
and Custom Process Technologies. ASI
is dedicated to providing fast fabrication of designs with
maximum IP protection using standard processes and/or customer
defined processes. In addition to foundry services, American
Semiconductor is active in advanced technology research
supported by agencies such as the U.S. Department of Defense,
U.S. Department of Energy, and NASA.
Affiliations
- IEEE
- Registered Government Contractor
- Fabless Semiconductor Association
ASI Business Model: Fabless Foundry, IC Licensing
Business
Model – Foundry Fabrication
ASI provides pure-play low-cost foundry services but avoids
high capital investment through the use of fabrication
sub-contractor factories producing Flexfet™ CMOS and custom
technologies under the direction of ASI Engineering.
“Foundry” is a business model for a service
organization that caters to the processing and manufacturing
of silicon wafers. A pure-play foundry is a company that
focuses 100% of its efforts on this service and offers no end
products. These companies typically develop and own the
process technology or partner with another company for it.
Historically, Foundries own their own Fabs. However, foundries
exist that sub-contract fab requirements (Ex: MOSIS, ASI) and
“Shared” fabs are an emerging trend for advanced
microelectronics fabrication (Ex: LSI, Cypress). Other types
of companies may offer foundry services to supplement their
internal product and capacity requirements.
“Fab” is short for fabrication facility or silicon
wafer manufacturing plant. This term is typically used to
describe an individual facility for wafer fabrication that is
a physical, bricks & mortar asset, rather than a company. Fabs
are generally characterized by their wafer diameter, minimum
feature capability and capacity. ASI provides pure-play
low-cost foundry services but avoids high capital investment
through the utilization of sub-contracted fabs producing
wafers using Flexfet™ and custom process technologies under
the direction of ASI Engineering.
ASI Foundry customers are typically “Fabless Design
Companies” that utilize foundries to fabricate their
custom IC designs using a foundry process. The customer
selects the foundry based on the performance of the process
technology and the mask & wafer cost. The customer orders,
receives and pays the foundry for fabricated wafers. The
customer will then sell “chips” from the wafers as IC devices
or components to their target market. ASI Foundry customers
can include “integrated device manufacturers” (IDMs) that
out-source a portion of their fabrication requirements even
though they own proprietary fabs. These customers often do
this for a variety of reasons including: surge capacity,
unique process capability, non-standard process requirements
and fabrication cost reduction.
“Licensing” Fabs require on-going new process
technology development to meet the challenges of technology
scaling. The continued market demand to reduce feature size,
reduce power and increase integration requires continuous
development of new fab processes that may or may not require
new materials or equipment to produce. ASI Technology License
customers come from organizations that own fabs and that wish
to enable their fabs with the process advantages that Flexfet™
processes provide.
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