Tower Semiconductor

Tower Semiconductor Ltd.
Public
Traded as TASE: TSEM NASDAQ: TSEM
Industry Semiconductor
Founded 1993 (1993)
Headquarters Migdal Haemek, Israel
Revenue IncreaseUS$ 960 million (2015)[1]
Subsidiaries Jazz Semiconductor
Website www.towerjazz.com

Tower Semiconductor Ltd. (TowerJazz) and its fully owned U.S. subsidiaries Jazz Semiconductor ,[2] and TowerJazz Texas [3] operate collectively under the brand name TowerJazz, the global specialty foundry leader. TowerJazz manufactures integrated circuits offering a range of customizable process technologies, including SiGe, BiCMOS, SOI ,[4] mixed-signal and RFCMOS, CMOS image sensors [5] ,[6] power management (BCD), and non-volatile memory (NVM) as well as MEMS capabilities. TowerJazz also owns 51% of TowerJazz Panasonic Semiconductor Co. (TPSCo) ,[7] an enterprise with Panasonic Corporation. Through TPSCo, TowerJazz offers leading edge 45 nm CMOS, 65 nm RF CMOS and 65 nm 1.12µm pixel technologies.

Overview

The company manufactures integrated circuits for semiconductor companies such as: Avago Technologies, Fairchild Semiconductor ,[8] Intel ,[9] International Rectifier, Panasonic, RF Micro Devices, Samsung, Skyworks Solutions, Texas Instruments and Vishay – Siliconix. For global capacity assurance, TowerJazz operates seven manufacturing facilities on three continents: Fab 1 and Fab 2 (150mm and 200mm) located in Migdal Haemek, Israel, Fab 3 and Fab 9 (200mm) located in Newport Beach, California and in San Antonio, Texas and three additional fabs (two 200mm and one 300mm) through TPSCo located in the Hokuriku region of Japan. In addition, TowerJazz operates a worldwide design center in Netanya, Israel.

Tower Semiconductor (TowerJazz) is an Israeli public company that is traded on NASDAQ and the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, and is included in the TA-100 Index and the TA BlueTech Index. In 2010, TowerJazz became the #1 specialty foundry by revenue, with 70% revenue growth year-over-year.[10]

History

Tower Semiconductor was founded in 1993, with the acquisition of National Semiconductor’s 150mm wafer fabrication facility. Tower became a public company in 1994 and shares are traded on NASDAQ (TSEM) and Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TSEM). In January 2001, an adjacent, state-of-the-art facility (Fab 2) was constructed.

In September 2008, Tower acquired Jazz Semiconductor in a stock for stock transaction. In November 2009, the combined companies officially launched as TowerJazz. The merger provided several key benefits: increased global capacity, cross-selling opportunities among diverse customer bases of both companies, a more comprehensive product portfolio, and a stronger financial base.

In June 2011, TowerJazz acquired Micron Technology’s fabrication facility in Nishiwaki City, Hyogo, Japan. The acquisition nearly doubled TowerJazz’s 2010 internal manufacturing capacity and cost-effectively increased production by 60,000 wafers per month.

In April 2014, TowerJazz announced the successful transaction with Panasonic Corporation (First Section of TSE and NSE ticker: 6752) to form a newly established Japanese company, TowerJazz Panasonic Semiconductor Co. (TPSCo) for the manufacture of Panasonic and additional third party products. TowerJazz announced cessation of its Nishiwaki facility operations in the course of rationalizing and restructuring its manufacturing and business activities in Japan. This enables the company to reduce its annual fixed costs by approximately $130 million per annum.

In February 2016, TowerJazz announced the successful acquisition of an 8-inch wafer fabrication facility in San Antonio, Texas, United States from Maxim Integrated Products, Inc., the consideration, of $40 million was paid by approximately 3.3 million ordinary TowerJazz shares. this acquisition increased increased TowerJazz's production by 28,000 wafers per month.

Fabrication facilities

Fab 1

Fab 1, located in Migdal Haemek, Israel is a 150mm facility which was acquired from National Semiconductor in 1993 at the time of Tower Semiconductor’s founding. Since that time, Fab 1 has been significantly modernized and offers process geometries ranging from 1.0-micron to 0.35-micron including CMOS image sensors, embedded flash and mixed-signal technologies.

Fab 2

Fab 2, a 200mm facility was constructed in January 2001, adjacent to Fab 1 in Migdal Haemek, Israel and was designed to operate in geometries of 0.18-micron and below, using advanced CMOS technology.

Fab 3

Fab 3, located in Newport Beach, California, USA was acquired by Tower when it merged with Jazz Technologies in 2008. Jazz Semiconductor was formed in 2002 and inherited the 200mm facility that was once operated by Rockwell Semiconductor. At Fab 3, Jazz established industry leading SiGe, BiCMOS and MEMS technologies and expanded upon its heritage for on-shore, specialized foundry services focused on the Aerospace and Defense industry.

Additional three fabs through TowerJazz Panasonic Semiconductor Co. (TPSCo)

TPSCo is 51% owned by Tower Semiconductor Ltd. (NASDAQ: TSEM, TASE: TSEM) and 49% owned by Panasonic Corporation (NASDAQ ADS: PCRFY, TYO: 6752). TPSCo has three manufacturing facilities in Hokuriku, Japan (Uozu, Tonami, and Arai) which have been producing large scale integrated circuits for over 30 years. Areas of process technology focus include high dynamic range image sensors (CIS and CCD), integrated power devices (BCD, SOI and LDMOS) and high frequency silicon RFCMOS. TPSCo offers both IDMs and fabless companies over 120 qualified silicon process flows on 200mm and 300mm substrates from super micron to 45 nm, as well as internal back end processing, assembly and test services.

See also

References

  1. ↑ https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TSEM/financials?p=TSEM
  2. ↑ "Tower completes Jazz acquisition", Semiconductor Today, 22 September 2008
  3. ↑ "TowerJazz Completes Acquisition of Maxim's Fabrication Facility in San Antonio, Texas". Retrieved 2016-08-08.
  4. ↑ "RF SOI Foundry Biz Heats Up", Semiconductor Engineering, 13 November 2014
  5. ↑ "Tower Semi, Korea produce CMOS image sensor", EE Times Europe, 9 October 2014
  6. ↑ "Report: Medical image sensor market to reach $142M by 2019", Vision Systems Design, 21 October 2014
  7. ↑ TowerJazz Announces Completion and Kick-off of its Joint Venture with Panasonic Corporation, 1 April 2014
  8. ↑ "Fairchild transfers discrete production to Tower in Japan", EE Times Europe, 10 December 2014
  9. ↑ "Tower makes IR sensor for Intel RealSense", EE Times Europe, 4 March 2015
  10. ↑ "TowerJazz set to become world's No. 1 specialty foundry", Globes, 23 January 2011

External links

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