Semiconductor fabrication plants are factories where integrated circuits (ICs), also known as microchips, are manufactured. They are either operated by Integrated Device Manufacturers (IDMs) that design and manufacture ICs in-house and may also manufacture designs from design-only (fabless firms), or by pure play foundries that manufacture designs from fabless companies and do not design their own ICs. Some pure play foundries like TSMC offer IC design services, and others, like Samsung, design and manufacture ICs for customers, while also designing, manufacturing and selling their own ICs.
Glossary of terms
- Wafer size – largest wafer diameter that a facility is capable of processing. (Semiconductor wafers are circular.)
- Process technology node – size of the smallest features that the facility is capable of etching onto the wafers.
- Production capacity – a manufacturing facility's nameplate capacity. Generally max wafers produced per month.
- Utilization – the number of wafers that a manufacturing plant processes in relation to its production capacity.
- Technology/products – Type of product that the facility is capable of producing, as not all plants can produce all products on the market.
Open plants
Operating fabs include foundries from TSMC, GlobalFoundries, Silex Microsystems, Tower Semiconductor, Advanced Micro Foundry, VTT, SilTerra and IHP Microelectronics amongst others.[1]
Number of open fabs currently listed here:
(NOTE: Some fabs located in Asia don't use the number 4, or any 2 digit number that adds up to 4, because it is considered bad luck; see tetraphobia.)
Closed plants
Number of closed fabs currently listed here:
See also
- List of MEMS foundries
- List of Intel manufacturing sites
- List of integrated circuit manufacturers
- Semiconductor device fabrication
External links
- // IC Insights, Global Semiconductor Alliance, 2013-07-09
- SEMI World Fab Forecast 2013 // SEMI, 2013