Elmos Semiconductor in Germany has signed a sale and purchase agreement (SPA) to transfer its 200mm automotive-qualified wafer fab activities in Dortmund to Swedish MEMS foundry Silex Microsystems in a deal worth €85m.
Elmos will transfer all relevant assets and contracts that are directly linked to the wafer manufacturing into the newly founded stand-alone foundry operation. Silex will acquire 100 per cent of the shares of this entity for €77.5m, including direct and indirect personnel under the leadership of the former management of the Elmos fab.
Elmos will remain the owner of the building, which is also its headquarters, but will lease the clean room to Silex based on a long-term lease agreement. Elmos will also provide the necessary infrastructure, utilities, IT-support and licenses to Silex based on separate lease and service agreements. The testing activities for Elmos products, which include automotive sensors, will remain at Elmos Semiconductor.
- Elmos Semi backs ARM for automotive
- Consolidation will change the automotive chip industry
- Elmos sells California subsidiary to maintain automotive focus
In addition, Elmos and Silex have entered into a long-term supply agreement until at least 2027, with Elmos buying processed wafers produced at the fab. The deal included around 7 million Euro for the work-in-progress inventory. The total purchase price therefore is around 85 million Euro.
The closing of the transaction is expected to take place in the second half of 2022 and is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals.
Silex Microsystems, based in Järfälla, Sweden, offers state-of-the-art MEMS production of advanced sensors and actuators, mainly for medical, consumer, telecommunication, industrial and automotive applications.
“Although Elmos is on a growth path, the customer demand for our 350nm automotive products will decline in the long term, as smaller node size products will be used in the future. Today’s agreement with Silex provides a promising and long-term perspective with new products and technologies for this location. We are very happy and convinced that we have found a very good and sustainable solution for our employees, our customers and the Dortmund location,” said Dr Arne Schneider, CEO of Elmos Semiconductor (above, left)
“The acquisition of this automotive qualified 8-inch wafer fab will be an important milestone in our successful growth strategy. The Elmos fab, with its efficient high quality wafer processing operation and highly experienced team, is a perfect fit for our needs and opens up new possibilities for Silex. This transaction will help us in achieving our goal to become the industry’s most advanced and efficient provider of advanced wafer foundry manufacturing. The Silex team is very proud to continue and expand the wafer fabrication operation at this location,” said Dr Edvard Kälvesten, CEO, Board Member and Founder of Silex Microsystems (above, right).
Related articles
- Low-noise sensor signal processing with SENT interface
- European Chips Act for semiconductor sovereignty
- ASML visit to boost European CHIPS Act
- TSMC looks to 12nm Dresden fab
- TSMC in wafer fab talks with German government
Other articles on eeNews Europe
- Phase-change memory comes to 18nm FDSOI
- IBM shows vertical FET with better scaling at 2nm
- RadioVerse chip looks to drive FPGAs out of 5G radios
- First long distance cargo drone launched
- Finnish consortium tapes out multicore RISC-V edge AI IoT chip
- Imagination launches four RISC-V processor IP families
If you enjoyed this article, you will like the following ones: don't miss them by subscribing to :
