1st Silicon Closer to First Silicon

Malaysian foundry opens admin. facility

administrative building on the 97- acre campus, which brings the project that much closer to producing its first wafer in the fourth quarter.
     "We're all looking forward to being close to the fab," Loddo said. "We are starting to smell the fab. It has been a long time since our (personnel) has smelled that wafer manufacturing kind of smell. People are looking forward to moving in now and being there and being able to work with the equipment and finally getting back to the real world of manufacturing."
     At moving-in ceremonies last Thursday, Loddo told the assembled staff that the fab's clean room is 88 percent complete. Process equipment worth several$100 million is scheduled for installation in early May and will support initial run rates of 20,000 wafers per month.

     "When you're a start-up, from the day you decide to build a fab until you actually occupy it,

      Loddo described the facility as a very modern, high-tech building. Fab qualification is scheduled for the third quarter of this year. When it is up to full capacity of 30,000 8-inch equivalent wafers per month, 1^st Silicon will be producing integrated circuits from 0.25-micron to 0.18-micron process technology, Loddo said.
     Loddo expects production to start toward the end of the fourth quarter and he feels fortunate to predict that time frame, especially since ordering semiconductor manufacturing equipment under the current high-demand conditions translates into extensive lead-times. 1^st Silicon reserved its equipment production order in July 1999.

BY TOM MURPHY

A new pure-play foundry business under construction in the Malaysian jungle is so close to producing its first wafer that the personnel can almost smell it.
     That's according to Claudio Loddo, chief executive officer of 1st Silicon Sdn. Bhd, Kuching, Malaysia, on the occasion of the company's announcement today that it completed its first phase of a $1 billion fab ahead of schedule. Some 700 professional and support staff have begun to move into the

Claudio G. Loddo, chief executive officer, 1st Silicon Sdn. Bhd.

a good 15 months go by," Loddo said.     "So all of these engineers who are used to being in the fab, and used to having their multimillion-dollar toys, can now finally get back to the real world of semiconductors.So we're very, very excited."

© Copyright 2000 Cahners Publishing