October 15, 2007 – Pureplay foundry Silterra Malaysia says it has completed a first $100 million phase of expansion at its existing fab, bringing capacity up to between 35,000-40,000 wafers/month, mainly targeting 0.13-micron and also some 90nm capabilities. The company says it will start offering a 0.13-micron 32V high-voltage process sometime this quarter, and will roll out RF models for 0.16-0.13-micron processes in 1Q08 and 2Q08, respectively.

“We have quite a number of customers who have started many designs of significant volume with us over the pass 9-12 months and we want to make sure that we deliver to their needs,” said Silterra CEO Kah Yee Eg, in a statement, adding that the company’s first-time silicon success rate “has increased tremendously.”

In July Silterra laid out a three-stage plan to pump up capacity for process technologies ranging from 0.18-micron to 65nm. Phase 2 of the foundry’s expansion plan involves acquiring another 200mm fab to better achieve economies of scale, something the company has been actively looking to do. A further Phase 3 stage will involve building a new 20k-25k WPM 300mm/90-65nm wafer fab, at an estimated total cost of $1.5-2.0 billion.

That announcement came a month after it extended an existing process technology deal with European R&D consortium IMEC to create a foundry-compatible 90nm CMOS process technology based on IMEC’s process, with intention to scale to 65nm and develop a 110nm derivative in parallel.