X-FAB Silicon Foundries, the trusted automotive foundry, and Silicon Works, the leading Korean fabless company, today announced they have reached a milestone in their strategic partnership to bring new automotive sensor solutions to the Korean market and replace current devices with domestic solutions. Mass production of their first device – a signal processing IC – now is underway at X-FAB’s 200mm facility in Kuching, Malaysia. This product for non-magnetic position or displacement sensors, suitable for automotive and industrial applications, is fully qualified according to AECQ100 standards.

X-FAB, a long-standing supplier to the automotive industry, achieves more than 50 percent of its revenue through automotive devices; its development and manufacturing procedures fully comply with strict automotive quality standards (ISO TS 16949). Silicon Works achieved record turnaround time from idea to product by leveraging X-FAB’s first-time-right approach; this approach enables designers to achieve functional silicon at first design iteration through an entire ecosystem of tools, dedicated support, comprehensive simulation and modelling data. Further devices are already in the prototyping phase, deepening the relationship of both companies and laying the foundation for market success.

Rudi De Winter, X-FAB’s CEO, explained the importance of this cooperation: “We have been really impressed with the design skills and incredible speed of execution that Silicon Works has demonstrated in bringing challenging automotive products to the market. The combination of Silicon Works’ design excellence and our manufacturing excellence produced tangible results within a remarkably short timeframe. Our strategic partnership results in a clear win-win situation for both companies to mutually address the Korean automotive market.”

Daekeun Han, CEO of Silicon Works, added, “We are very proud to work closely with X-FAB as the leading automotive foundry who has long-term experience in developing highly reliable and robust foundry technologies. Its German engineering and the stable manufacturing in its fabs worldwide contribute to the outstanding quality of our joint offerings. We look forward to continuing and expanding our fruitful business relationship in the future.”

About Silicon Works Co. Ltd.

Silicon Works Co., Ltd. (KOSDAQ:108320:KS), the leading Korean fabless company, develops, designs and markets semiconductors for many different types of applications and markets including automotive. Established in 1999, Silicon Works has been growing as a leading total-solution provider of display panels and now is poised to become a global top-tier fabless company with its cutting-edge design and development competitiveness. For more information, please visit www.siliconworks.co.kr

About X-FAB

X-FAB is the leading analog/mixed-signal and MEMS foundry manufacturing silicon wafers for automotive, industrial, consumer, medical and other applications. Its customers worldwide benefit from the highest quality standards, manufacturing excellence and innovative solutions by using X-FAB’s modular CMOS processes in geometries ranging from 1.0 to 0.18 µm, and its special BCD, SOI and MEMS long-lifetime processes. X-FAB’s analog-digital integrated circuits (mixed-signal ICs), sensors and micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) are manufactured at five production facilities in Germany, Malaysia and the U.S. X-FAB employs 2,400 people worldwide. For more information, please visit www.xfab.com.

Acronyms

BCD   Bipolar-CMOS-DMOS
CEO Chief Executive Officer
CMOS Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor
ICs Integrated Circuits
IDM Integrated Device Manufacturer
SOI Silicon On Insulator