MXIM: Maxim Opts to Buy, Rather Than Build, Capacity

Maxim Announces Acquisition of Wafer Fab Facility in Irving, Texas:

Maxim Integrated Products, Inc., (MXIM) announced thatit has acquired a wafer fabrication facility in Irving, Texas fromAtmel for approximately $38 million. The facility, located onapproximately 39 acres, is comprised of approximately 622,000 squarefeet of clean room and office space. Approximately 60,000 square feetis currently clean room space with the capability of expanding to100,000 square feet.

$38 million is far less than the cost to build a new fabricationplant. Because the analog chips made by Maxim do not require the latestand greatest in semiconductor equipment, Maxim is able to buy itsfacilities from the cutting edge manufacturers who can no longer makeuse of them.

Vijay Ullal, Group President at Maxim, commented, “Thisfacility puts us in an excellent position for future capacityrequirements. It is capable of 20,000 eight inch wafer starts per monthwith the capability of expanding to over 30,000 wafer starts per month.The scale and construction of this facility will enable Maxim to bringon line capacity down to the 0.18um node with low cost and short cycletime with high yields.”

Most of the memory chips and other cutting-edge facilities are using12-inch wafers and 0.06um geometries. While such manufacturers find thefacility ancient, Maxim is able to swoop in and bring it a new lease onlife. In our experience, Maxim’s fab purchases have typically generatedsolid return on investment.

http://www.stockmarketbeat.com/