3 February 2016

TowerJazz closes acquisition of Maxim's Texas fab, adding 28,000 wafers per month capacity

Specialty foundry TowerJazz (which has fabrication plants at Tower Semiconductor Ltd in Migdal Haemek, Israel, and at its subsidiaries Jazz Semiconductor Inc in Newport Beach, CA, USA and TowerJazz Japan Ltd) has completed its acquisition of an 8-inch wafer fabrication facility in San Antonio, Texas from Maxim Integrated Products Inc of San Jose, CA, USA (which provides analog integration to automotive, cloud data-center, mobile consumer, and industrial applications). Maxim received $40m in cash and about 3.3 million shares of Tower Semiconductor common stock (about 3% of the firm's fully diluted share count).

The acquisition will expand TowerJazz's global manufacturing capacity, increasing its production by about 28,000 wafers per month. The availability of capacity is needed to serve current and forecasted customer demand, the firm says.

As part of the transaction, the firms signed a 15-year supply agreement under which TowerJazz will manufacture products for Maxim in the San Antonio facility, in quantities that will allow for a gradual ramp of third-party products.

"We already performed first qualifications of our high-demand and high-volume flows, with Maxim's approval, confirming the outstanding engineering and manufacturing capabilities of the San Antonio fab personnel," comments TowerJazz's CEO Russell Ellwanger. 

"We needed a trusted partner to manage our proprietary process technology who also shared our commitment to the employees in San Antonio," says Vivek Jain, senior VP of Maxim Integrated's Technology and Manufacturing Group. "TowerJazz has a proven track record with Maxim and similar beliefs about employees… I look forward to our continued partnership over the coming years," he adds. "With this arrangement, we will continue to support our customers for years to come, improve utilization in our Oregon fab, and advance our manufacturing flexibility."

See related items:

TowerJazz to buy Maxim's Texas wafer fab for $40m

Tags: TowerJazz SOI RF CMOS SiGe

Visit: www.towerjazz.com

Visit: www.maximintegrated.com