Toshiba Goes Contract Semiconductor Manufacturing

by Anton Shilov
10/18/2004 | 02:28 PM

Toshiba Corp., a company that has never before made chips for fabless semiconductor firms, announced a strategic foundry relationship under which Toshiba will manufacture Xilinx high-performance field programmable gate array (FPGA) products.

Together, the companies have already achieved a key milestone with the successful output of functional 90nm first silicon at Toshiba’s 300mm-wafer manufacturing plant at Oita, in Kyushu, Japan. Toshiba will start volume manufacturing in the first quarter of calendar year 2005.

Toshiba and Xilinx attribute first silicon success to their proven technology expertise as pioneers in the industry's race to 90nm manufacturing. Both Toshiba and Xilinx were among only a handful of semiconductor industry leaders delivering 90nm products in 2003.

As part of the manufacturing agreement, Xilinx will make advance payments to Toshiba, which will be offset against future wafer purchases. The amounts involved are not viewed as material to Xilinx. Success in the present agreement is expected to point the way to continued cooperation between Toshiba and Xilinx in next-generation 65nm manufacturing process technology.

This agreement assures Xilinx of another source of stable supply of cutting-edge FPGA products manufactured with the industry's most advanced process technology, and allows the company to rely on Toshiba's expertise in integrating high-level design and process technology. The agreement also assures Toshiba of volume semiconductor business in the most advanced technology from one of the world's leading fabless semiconductor companies, thereby underscoring the company's leadership in a significant segment of the system large scale integration (LSI) business.

Xilinx, one of the pioneers of the fabless semiconductor business model two decades ago, continues to be at the forefront of the race to advanced manufacturing processes, and has established an impressive track record, as one of the first to 150nm in 2001, 130nm in 2002, and 90nm in 2003. Currently, Xilinx is also one of the highest volume purchasers of 300mm wafers globally. To remain at the leading edge and to meet growing customer demand for its popular FPGAs, the company remains committed to a multi-source manufacturing strategy.

The new agreement with Xilinx signifies Toshiba's determination to strengthen its presence in the advanced system large-scale integration business, which is at the heart of today's digital consumer products. The new fabrication facility at Oita has a crucial role to play in the company's strategy, drawing upon Toshiba's industry-leading know-how in CMOS process technology and track record of industry firsts at the most advanced process technology nodes. Toshiba started mass production of system large scale integration with 90nm process technology in the spring of 2003. It expects to be one of the first semiconductor facilities in the world to deploy 65nm process and design technologies.

Xilinx FPGAs are ideally suited to prove and test advanced manufacturing processes, due to their regular structure and re-programmability. Defects can be more easily identified and isolated during manufacturing than with traditional, fixed semiconductor device architectures, making them an ideal process driver for a volume manufacturer such as Toshiba.