May 30, 2007 – Fulfilling one of the strategic plans laid out when spinning out into a standalone entity, SVTC Technologies — nee the Silicon Valley Technology Center, which was sold by Cypress Semiconductor in February to private equity investors — has announced a “technology incubation program” with top foundry TSMC.

Under the program, TSMC and SVTC will encourage development of “novel silicon ideas” with work done in SVTC’s 200mm fab environment, and a smoother potential transfer of those technologies to TSMC for manufacturing.

“There are more and more applications in the semiconductor industry being developed which use novel structures and new materials,” said Dave Bergeron, SVTC Technologies’ CEO, in a statement. “SVTC is uniquely placed in the emerging value chain to help semiconductor development teams from both fabless and integrated device manufacturers to fully develop their new concepts before taking them into volume production.”

“This strategic alliance expands the TSMC ecosystem to enable more innovations by allowing companies, especially those who need special equipment, to develop products at SVTC and transfer accepted business smoothly to TSMC manufacturing,” added Ken Chen, director of TSMC’s mainstream technology marketing.

Back in February, Bert Bruggeman, GM for the SVTC, told WaferNEWS that among future opportunities for SVTC once spun out of Cypress Semiconductor was to work more closely with foundries as a kind of referral. He noted that TSMC or UMC platforms don’t lend themselves to the more “disruptive” process development going on at SVTC, so “we’re the perfect vehicle to develop against manufacturing standards with foundries,” he said. SVTC also aims to expand its CMOS-derivative offerings of memory, display, and energy, first including more work around MEMS, he added.