White Oak Semiconductor Achieves First Silicon in Record Time

Siemens AG (Munich and Berlin) and Motorola (Schaumburg, IL) formally opened White Oak Semiconductor, their $1.5 billion jointly owned semiconductor manufacturing facility near Richmond.

White Oak Semiconductor, a state-of-the-art 8-inch semiconductor plant, has already broken records as the first wafer fabrication facility to go from concrete to having first tools installed in 11 months. Most recently, it achieved first silicon of 64-megabit (MBit) DRAMs (Dynamic Random Access Memory) in 0.25 micron technology in a record time of three months. The 50/50 joint venture, currently has a workforce of 1,000 employees. The new 800,000-square-foot facility is designed for fully integrated wafer manufacturing, assembly and final test.

White Oak Semiconductor is currently ramping up its initial product, the 64 MBit DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory). The 64 MBit DRAMs will be marketed by Siemens Semiconductors. Motorola will market next-generation FSRAM (Fast Static Random Access Memory) devices that will be added to the plant's product portfolio later this year. More than 300 of today's 1,000 employees were trained at Motorola and Siemens Semiconductors production facilities around the globe, some of them for as long as ten months. Training sites included Dresden, Germany; Malacca, Malaysia; Phoenix, AZ; and Austin, TX.

Besides their manufacturing joint venture in Virginia, Siemens and Motorola have teamed up in another joint venture to develop next-generation 300mm wafer manufacturing technology at Siemens Semiconductors' chip plant in Dresden, Germany.

Edited by Beth Brindle