TSMC, NXP, Infineon and Bosch team up for German chip foundry
TSMC, Robert Bosch, Infineon and NXP will partner to form a new firm, the European Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, and open a nearly $11 billion chipmaking facility in Germany.
ESMC, as the company will be known, will be aimed at providing necessary silicon for the automotive and industrial sectors, according to a statement issued Tuesday. The planned facility, which will be located in Dresden, will be able to produce 40,000 300mm silicon wafers per month, with each wafer able to produce hundreds of chips, depending on their specific design.
The facility will use TSMC’s 28/22nm planar CMOS technology for larger semiconductor nodes, as well as 16/12 FinFET process for smaller ones. CMOS stands for complementary metal-oxide semiconductor, and is an older and more established fabrication technique, whereas FinFET, or fin field-effect transistor, enables the production of faster and more advanced processors.