OCT. 31–CROLLES, France–TRONIC’S Microsystems, a developer of custom Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) for high-end applications, has opened a production facility in this moutain town near Grenoble.

The company is currently enhancing its production capacity of high performance, high value add custom MEMS products based on specialized thick silicon-on-insulator (SOI) micromachining processes.

TRONIC’S Microsystems has completed the installation phase of equipment at its new site and is currently qualifying its production processes. It is on target with its objective of completely transferring its existing production at the CEA Leti site to its new Crolles site by year end. This task is facilitated by the use of compatible equipment for production, packaging and testing at both sites.

At 10 000 wafers per year, the new production facility represents a quadrupling of previous production capacity. Production output will further double starting year end 2004 with the introduction of 150 mm (6-inch) production processes which will supercede the existing 100 mm (4-inch) production processes. The new facility is installed with both 100 mm and 150 mm compatible equipment.

The new 13 500-square-foot manufacturing facility building is comprised 6 500 square fee of office space and 7 000 square feet of production area, of which 4,300 square feet are cleanrooms. It represents a total investment of $6.5 million: $2 million for the cleanrooms and $4.5 million for the equipment, while the extremely favorable market conditions meant this investment was used to maximum effect.