October 22, 2007 – The Fab Owners Association (FOA), an association of mainly second-tier semiconductor manufacturers and suppliers, says its recently-formed purchasing organization, FOA Purchasing Partners Inc., has signed several agreements for services including logistics/transportation, cleanroom supplies, publishing, telecom services, B2B office supplies/equipment, and auto rentals.

The purchasing unit’s first preferred vendors include:
– Avis Rent A Car System LLC: national and international automobile rentals
– Mazik Media: publisher of “Future Fab” and “Fab Engineering and Operations”
– NationLink Wireless – OneSource: telecom expense management
– Corporate Express: office and computer products/services
– McCollister’s Transportation Group Inc.: logistics and specialized transportation
– VWR International: production supplies for controlled environments

The PPI division was created in July 2007 to represent the FOA and its devicemaker members with procurement services including aggregation of demand, contract negotiations, and contract management for semiconductor manufacturing consumables. The 12 members of the PPI unit include AMI Semiconductor, Austriamicrosystems AG, Avago Technologies, Cypress Semiconductor, Diode FabTech, Fairchild Semiconductor, International Rectifier, Intersil, Micrel Semiconductor, Microchip Technology, ON Semiconductor, and Skyworks Solutions.

he 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).

As of June 2007, the FOA’s devicemaker membership represented over $27 billion in annual revenues, spanning more than 60 semiconductor and MEMS manufacturing fabs worldwide with approximately 1.1 million wafer starts/month (200mm-equivalent).