News and Research on Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMI)
Business Description
Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation engages principally in the computer-aided design, manufacturing, and trading of integrated circuits. The company also engages in the design, manufacturing, packaging, testing and trading of integrated circuits and other semiconductor services, and manufacturing design of semiconductor masks.
The company operates as a major IC foundry that provides one-stop IC fabrication services at 0.35¦Im to 0.13¦Im technologies to customer’s world wide. SMIC has four 8-inch fabs: three in Shanghai and one in Tianjin. In addition, SMIC is building a 12-inch facility in Beijing. The foundry also has marketing and customer service offices in the U.S., Japan, and Europe, and partners in other locations. The company’s joint ventures, a testing and assembly facility in Chengdu with UTAC and the manufacturing of on-chip color filters and micro lenses in Shanghai with Toppan, are also in production.
The company’s main wafer manufacturing facilities are located in Shanghai, a key industrial and commercial center in China. SMIC has ramped up three 8-inch fabs in Shanghai, acquired a fourth 8-inch fab in Tianjin, and is ramping up a 12-inch facility in Beijing. Strategic location in these key regions enables SMIC to provide better service for the growing number of IC design houses and customers in these areas, and to provide customers access into the major consumer markets throughout China.
Services
The company offers various technologies from 0.35¦Im to 0.13¦Im, with capabilities that include logic, mixed signal/RF CMOS, high voltage, SoC, DRAM, flash, EEPROM, CIS and LCoS micro-display technology. SMIC provides services that include design services, mask making, IC manufacturing, and testing. Packaging and final testing are offered through SMIC's assembly and packaging facility in Chengdu or third-party vendors. The company, with internal offerings and collaboration with a global network of design service, IP, Library and EDA providers, offers its customers design support. SMIC's mask offers with 0.5¦Im to 90nm capabilities and it also has a testing facility for logic, mixed signal and memory devices.
The company offers a portfolio of semiconductor intellectual property (IP) blocks from 0.35um to 90nm to support the design needs of customers. With approximately 400 internal and third-party IPs available, SMIC provides its customers to get their designs to market and minimize their time-to-market. In addition, the company has its own I/O libraries with different pitches to help customers achieve optimal die sizes. These libraries also offer robust ESD protection. SMIC's 90nm standard I/O library offerings are under development.
SMIC offers ASIC design services from taking in design specifications, RTL or gate-level netlist, to GDSII file generation. SMIC ASIC service also provides turnkey service which includes front end design, back end design, mask tooling, wafer manufacturing, circuit probing, packaging, final testing, and logistics to deliver the parts. The ASIC design services available at SMIC include - Logic-level implementation, Circuit audits and simulations, Synthesis, SCAN insertion and ATPG, Place-and-Route, RC extraction, Delay calculation, Static timing analysis, Formal verification, and Physical verification.
SMIC provides process-optimized EDA support to enable efficient design flows for customers. In addition, SMIC provides multiple reference flows based on major EDA vendors' tools. These flows can help customers set up their design environments and drive designs from RTL to GDSII. As a result, time-to-production is significantly reduced. These reference flows are developed mutually by SMIC's EDA team and major EDA vendors, who include Cadence, Magma, Mentor Graphics, Synopsys, and Agilent.
SMIC's mask shop provides mask manufacturing services for SMIC's foundry customers and other fabs and institutions. The company has China's major mask making facility with 0.5¦Ìm to 90nm capabilities. Equipped with tools, the facility offers binary masks and phase shift masks complete with optical proximity correction. Both 5 x5 inches and 6x6 inches reticles for I-line, G-line or deep UV KrF and ArF steppers and scanners are available. SMIC's test facility offers customers testing services for logic, mixed signal and memory devices, which include wafer probing, epoxy probe card building and repair and testing for contact and contactless IC card types. The company’s wafer probing services include test program development and failure analysis and reliability testing.
SMIC provides assembly and final testing services through cooperation with a network of qualified companies, such as Amkor Technology, ChipMOS (Shanghai), GAPT, jcap, KLT, Nantong Fujitsu, STATSChipPAC (Shanghai), UTAC (Shanghai), and others. They provide solutions for its customers' needs, from ordering to assembly, testing, shipping and distribution. The packaging options include: Au-bump (gold bumping), DIP (dual inline package), SOP (small-outline package), PLCC (plastic major chip carrier), TSOP (thin small outline package), QFP (quad flat package), LQFP (low profile quad flat package), BGA (ball grid array), mBGA (mini-ball grid array), and ¦IBGA (micro ball grid array).
SMIC offers 8 inches wafer bumping services. This bumping line is capable of gold, eutectic/leadfree solder bump processing, and redistribution layer (RDL) processing. The solder bumping processes are compatible with both Al and Cu pads. This service can be used on products, such as LCD driver IC, SOC, and performance IC's that require flip chip or wafer level chip scale packaging. SMIC provides its customers with round-the-clock, online access to information and services, such as real-time manufacturing data, sales and post-sales support, libraries, tracking and logistics. The online solutions available to the company’s customers include:
Sales Support: The Sales Support portal allows instant access to customer forms, sales and post-sales service requests, and sales and engineering contacts at SMIC.
Technical Documents: A library of technical files for all SMIC process technologies available.
Design Service Documents: An available library of design services files and forms for SMIC library, IP and reference design support documents. Seamless integration allows order-on-demand for most services.
Quality & Reliability: Customers access quality and reliability information and project reports, such as process control management data, Wafer Sort BIN Map and summary reports.
Production Information: Up-to-date production information, such as WIP, Mask WIP, lot history and scrap reports, is available to customers.
Logistical Information: Project and order logistical information is available for immediate status update and tracking. Shipping information, billing reports, order history and backlog summaries are conveniently available.
Subsidiaries
The company’s principal subsidiaries include - Garrison Consultants Limited (Garrison) that provides consultancy services; Betterway Enterprises Limited (Betterway) that provides marketing related activities; Semiconductor Manufacturing International (Shanghai) Corporation (SMIS) that engages in the manufacture and trading of semiconductor products; SMIC, Americas that provides marketing related activities; Semiconductor Manufacturing International (Beijing) Corporation (SMIB) that engages in the manufacture and trading of semiconductor products; SMIC Japan Corporation that provides marketing related activities; SMIC Europe S.R.L that provides marketing related activities; SMIC Commercial (Shanghai) Limited Company (formerly SMIC Consulting Corporation) that operates convenience store; Semiconductor Manufacturing International (Tianjin) Corporation (SMIT) that engages in the manufacture and trading of semiconductor products; Semiconductor Manufacturing International (AT) Corporation (AT), 56.67% owned subsidiary that operates as an investment holding company; Semiconductor Manufacturing International (Chengdu) Corporation (SMICD), 56.67% owned subsidiary that engages in the manufacture and trading of semiconductor products; Semiconductor Manufacturing International (Solar Cell) Corporation (Solar Cell) that operates as an investment holding company; and SMIC Energy Technology (Shanghai) Science Corporation (Energy science) that engages in the manufacture and trading of solar cell related semiconductor products.
Joint Ventures and Alliances
Cadence Design Systems, Inc. and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC) have entered into a new collaboration to offer the Cadence RF (Radio-Frequency) Design Methodology Kit to the China RF IC design market. SMIC would develop process-design kits (PDKs) that would support the Cadence RF Design Methodology Kit and would validate the PDKs. The RF Methodology Kit includes an 802.11 b/g WLAN transceiver reference design, a full suite of block-, chip-, and system-level testbenches, simulation setups, test plans, and applicability training on the RF design and analysis methodologies. The kit focuses on top-down RF IC design and full-chip verification and addresses behavioral modeling, circuit simulation, layout, parasitic extraction and resimulation, and inductor synthesis. It also focuses on IC verification within a system context, leveraging system-level models and testbenches for use by designers in the IC environment.
In 2004, the company entered into an agreement with Toppan Printing Co., Ltd., to establish Toppan SMIC Electronics (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., a joint venture in Shanghai for the manufacture of on-chip color filters and micro-lenses for CMOS image sensors. That joint venture began pilot production in December 2005 and is under qualification.
The company’s customer’s world wide can tap into its global network of approximately 20 Design Services Partner Alliance (DSPA) partners for design implementation services. The company’s DSPA partners are located in the United States, Taiwan, China, Japan, Korea, and Europe.
Customers and Markets
The company provides semiconductor fabrication services for the devices, including Logic technologies, including standard logic, mixed-signal, RF and high voltage circuits; Memory technologies, including DRAM, SRAM, flash, EEPROM and mask ROM; and Specialty technologies, including LCOS, CMOS image sensors, and system-on-chip.
The company’s semiconductors are used in various computing, communications, consumer and industrial applications, such as PCs, mobile telephones, and digital cameras. The company’s target market includes a global customer base, consisting of IDMs, fabless semiconductor companies, and systems and other companies in China.
During 2005, the company engaged 93 new customers, bringing the total number of its customers to 254. The company primarily marketed its products and services in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific (excluding Japan), and Japan. The company’s customers participate in the consumer, communications or computer market segments.
The company manufactured for these companies, including the first 3G baseband chips on 0.13 micron process for the TD-SCDMA, WCDMA and CDMA2000 standards, a digital satellite receiver chip for set-top boxes and a HDTV video processor. The company also commenced manufacturing for Hangzhou Guoxin Science & Technology Co., Ltd, a satellite broadcast receiver chip which received the 2005 Technology Innovation award from China’s Ministry of Information Industry.
History
Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation was founded in 2000.
