April 21, 2006 – Singapore-based foundry Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing has expanded a manufacturing agreement with Microsoft to migrate production of CPUs for its Xbox gaming console using silicon-on-insulator (SOI) to 65nm process technologies. Production is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2007.

Chartered also has licensed 90nm silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology from IBM, to expand its use of IBM’s 90nm SOI to its own foundry customers, in areas including consumer, multi-media, communications, automotive and industrial applications. Chartered had been making the 90nm SOI-based chips from its Fab 7 since January 2004.

“The licensing agreement allows us to open new markets for SOI technology and continue to reap the benefits of a common platform approach,” stated Kevin Meyer, VP of worldwide marketing and platform alliances at Chartered.

“Chartered’s ability to demonstrate the manufacturability of IBM’s advanced SOI technology in Fab 7 was key to our selection. We plan to continue with our strategy of dual sourcing from Chartered and IBM’s fabs, which are operationally aligned and compatible, to give us the consistent product quality and flexibility we will need,” said Larry Yang, GM of Xbox console development at Microsoft.