SILTERRA “CHIPS-IN” TO BOOST LOCAL IC R&D
Wafer foundry provides “free” chip fabrication facilities to Malaysian chip designers

KUALA LUMPUR, December 4 – Silterra Malaysia Sdn Bhd (Silterra), a leading semiconductor wafer foundry majority owned by Khazanah Nasional, and the Microelectronic Design Consortium (Consortium), today signed the Cooperation Programme Agreement (CPA) to undertake the “Multi-project silicon wafer verification programme”.

As part of a joint effort between Silterra and the consortium, the programme allows researchers, undergraduates and teaching faculty members from the participating universities to carry out fabrication of chip designs on a free-of-charge basis.

The Consortium members comprise of Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Universiti Malaya (UM), Malaysian Multimedia University (MMU), Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) and Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM).

The signing of the CPA was witnessed by Dato' Prof. Dr. Hassan bin Said, Director-General, Ministry of Higher Education, who represented Dato’ Mustapa Mohamed, the Minister of Higher Education

Speaking at the signing ceremony, Bruce Gray, CEO of Silterra said, “Today’s event marks an important milestone for all of us – the participating universities and Silterra. Silterra has been continuously collaborating with local universities for the last 4 years to help develop local core competency and chip design capabilities in leading edge technologies. Silterra is very committed to this effort because we want to play a catalytic role in moving Malaysia up the semiconductor value chain – a commitment that has formed part of the Company’s vision since its inception.”

Silterra’s high technology wafer foundry (fab) provides an opportunity for the members of the Consortium to test the functionality and validity of their designs for industrial application in Silterra’s fab. To date, Silterra has tested more than 60 chip designs and will be fabricating more designs with under the CPA.

Bruce explained that chip designing is the non-labour intensive, upstream and high-tech part of the semiconductor value chain. It is the high-end, high value component of the industry, which Malaysia should aspire to move up as part of its long-term plan to become a knowledge-based economy.

Some of the local universities had previously been individually collaborating with Silterra, as the cost to test their designs would otherwise be very exorbitant. The chip designers at these universities require Silterra’s support, since an integral step to developing good chip designs is through fabricating these designs for assessment and validation.

“Silterra has been providing support to local institutions of higher learning for the past 8 to 9 years and we will continue to do so through the Consortium,” said Bruce.

Prof. Dr. Othman Sidek who represents USM in the Consortium, said, “In today’s world of globalisation, we want our students to be competitive and knowledgeable. We need to encourage our students and lecturers to undertake research and development activities in collaboration with leading industry players. Today, with this partnership, members of the participating universities and Silterra will work together to nurture and develop our aspiring chip designers.”

“I urge the participating universities to make the best use of this opportunity, which is given to us on a free-of-charge basis by Silterra to enhance our chip design capabilities. I wish more corporations will follow Silterra’s foot steps to collaborate closely with our local universities so that Malaysia can produce competent scientists and engineers,” he added.

Silterra will provide fabrication facilities every quarter for the students and researchers to validate their designs.


About Silterra Malaysia Sdn Bhd:
Market demand driven, Silterra Malaysia Sdn Bhd is a semiconductor wafer foundry offering major foundry compatible CMOS logic, high-voltage and mixed-signal/RF technologies down to 0.13-micron feature size. This includes complete, competitive contract manufacturing for fabless and IDM customers’ designs. Silterra’s wafer fab has a design capacity of 40,000 eight-inch wafers per month.

Environmentally vigilant, Silterra delivers award winning, world-class performance to its customers seeking flexible capacity, competitive advantages and around the clock customer support. Silterra is ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 14001 certified. Founded in 1995, the company’s headquarters and factory are located in Malaysia’s Kulim High-Tech Park, and Silterra has sales and marketing offices in San Jose (California) and Hsinchu (Taiwan).

For additional information on Silterra or its services, please visit www.silterra.com