June 4, 2007 – The Fab Owners Association (FOA), a collection of an association of mainly second-tier semiconductor manufacturers, has formed a group purchasing organization, FOA Purchasing Partners Inc., to represent the FOA and its devicemaker members with procurement services including aggregation
of demand, contract negotiations, and contract management for semiconductor manufacturing consumables.

“Our expectation is to add additional preferred vendors to our current list, providing our devicemaker members with cost savings well beyond what single members may be achieving today,” stated L.T. Guttadauro, FOA executive director and president of the purchasing group.

The FOA already had been exploring ways to achieve manufacturing efficiencies, through such efforts as collaborative purchasing via an online member-to-member marketplace for surplus used manufacturing equipment (launched about a year ago), as well as a deal for things like office paper (late 2005).

After adding several more members to its roster last week — austriamicrosystems AG, Avago Technologies, and X-Fab, as well as National Grid, an economic development group for upstate New York — the FOA’s device maker membership now represents approximately 1.1 million wafer starts/month (200mm-equivalent) and over $27 billion in annual revenue, with more than 60 semiconductor and MEMS manufacturing fabs worldwide.