Germany - X-FAB Silicon Foundries (www.xfab.com) is to invest more than $50 million during the next three years in cleanroom space, new equipment, R&D and staff for its MEMS operations. These investments reflect X-FAB’s significant focus on MEMS to support the expected growth in MEMS services. 

The new brand X-FAB MEMS Foundry on X-FAB’s campus in Erfurt focuses solely on advanced MEMS manufacturing and developments, and will consolidate all of X-FAB’s MEMS business and activities.

X-FAB CEO Rudi De Winter says, “The MEMS sector is a strategic field of X-FAB’s overall activities to serve the growing needs of our customers. Our customers will benefit from the dedicated resources and expertise of a foundry focused solely on advanced MEMS technology, and built on X-FAB’s solid foundation of technical excellence. This move is X-FAB’s next step towards our goal of becoming one of the top three worldwide suppliers of MEMS foundry services.”

X-FAB says it provided the industry’s first open-platform MEMS 3-axis inertial sensor process available directly from a high-volume pure-play foundry. The company also completed a dedicated noble metal facility for MEMS.

With 8-inch MEMS capability, high-volume manufacturing of bulk and surface micromachined technologies, with and without CMOS integration is possible. Also, in-house technology platforms for mainstream MEMS applications such as pressure sensors, inertial sensors and infrared sensors have been developed by X-FAB. The firm has also designed ready-to-use IP design blocks for MEMS accelerometers.