Newport Beach, California–Conexant Systems, Inc. and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), of Hsinchu, Taiwan, today announced that they have entered into a long-term semiconductor cross-licensing wafer supply and technology agreement.

Under this agreement, TSMC will license advanced specialty radio frequency (RF) process technology intellectual property (IP) from Conexant to be used in bipolar and silicon germanium bipolar complementary metal oxide semiconductor (SiGe BiCMOS) applications, and will supply foundry capacity for these technologies to Conexant.

TSMC will take advantage of the licensed technology to more quickly bring its own high-performance foundry processes to the marketplace, particularly to satisfy requirements in the growing networking and wireless communications markets.

“Conexant is a leader in advanced specialty process technologies for the communications market,” says Dr. F.C. Tseng, president of TSMC. “We believe this agreement will allow us to accelerate delivery of these technologies to the broad foundry market.”

“TSMC is the foundry industry leader in both total volume output and breadth of technology,” says Dwight W. Decker, chairman and CEO of Conexant. “This agreement strengthens a vital relationship with a world-class supplier, provides a second source for Conexant products and leverages our investments and leadership position in advanced specialty RF process technologies. We are delighted with this agreement and look forward to working closely with TSMC for many years to come.”

Initial production of the first-generation specialty technology at TSMC is expected in the second half of 2001, with further advanced-generation technologies coming online in the following quarters.