August 30, 2005 – AMI Semiconductor has renewed its partnership with MOSIS, a prototype and low volume production IC fabrication service, to participate in the MOSIS multi-project wafer (MPW) program and MOSIS education program (MEP). These programs provide access to wafers for IC development, semiconductor prototyping, and test chips as an inexpensive method to prove out silicon to small businesses, start-ups, educational facilities, and other MOSIS customers.

Through the MPW program, development and manufacturing expenses are shared across multiple MOSIS customers by consolidating separate chip designs onto a single wafer. The wafers are processed in AMIS fabs in a variety of mixed-signal/analog CMOS process technologies, ranging from 1.5- to 0.35-micron.

AMIS will continue to provide a quarterly run of wafers at no cost to MOSIS for use with its education program — MEP.

“We are proud to have AMIS as a key sponsor of the MEP program,” said Cesar Pina, director of MOSIS. “The prototyping costs of many new designs make them impractical to manufacture on a dedicated run basis. MOSIS’ MEP program, in conjunction with AMI Semiconductor’s generosity, enables educational facilities to bring these designs to life.”

“Through its support of MEP, AMIS is helping to educate and train future semiconductor design engineers,” said Al Morrison, VP of AMI Semiconductor’s mixed-signal foundry business. “Graduating students and small or start-up businesses using these programs represent possible future employees, partners or customers of AMIS who will have experience designing and working with our manufacturing processes.”

With the support of AMIS, the MEP program supports more than 5000 students/year and generates more than 1000 designs/year. These designs are used for classroom instruction and unsponsored research, giving engineering students hands-on, practical IC design and manufacturing experience using AMIS technologies at an affordable price.