Hitachinaka City, Japan–Trecenti Technologies, Inc., a joint-venture foundry established by Hitachi and UMC, has produced its first ICs using 300mm wafers. The 4M and 8M static random access memory (SRAM) chips were fabricated using 0.18-micron technology and demonstrated reasonable first-silicon yields, reports the company.

“We have worked very hard to accomplish this milestone, and are extremely pleased to see the results of our efforts less than 1 year after Trecenti’s establishment,” says Toshio Nohara, president of Trecenti. “This achievement clearly demonstrates the strength of our world-class engineering team, as well as the commitment from Hitachi and UMC to make this joint-venture successful. With the successful completion of this pilot run, we are positioned to offer volume production capacity well ahead of the original scheduled roadmap.”

Trecenti was established earlier this year, in March, as a dedicated wafer foundry. Hitachi owns a 60% equity stake, and UMC holds 40%. The companies will share capacity equally.

Volume production at Trecenti is expected to begin in March 2001.