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In the early stage of semiconductor industry, the production model is Vertical Integration, IDM (Integrated Design & Manufacturing) company handle design and manufacturing process. The production model changed to vertical separation after Foundry and Assembly Manufacturer appeared in 1980, and many successful Fabless Design Houses also emerged at the same moment. The typical cooperating model is Design House designs IC layout, Foundry in charge of wafer manufacturing (ex., TSMC, UMC), wafer testing house in charge of yield test (ex., KYEC, Ardentec), and Assembly site in charge of wafer sawing, package, and final test processes (ex., ASE, SPIL).
In the last decade, the semiconductor production is more and more complicated, and the quality requirement from Design Houses is also increasing. Foundry cannot just play the role as a wafer manufacturer, provides the value-added Turnkey service which includes “Fast Yield Feedback” and “Producing Problem Solving” is also very important. Base on above circumstance, all Foundries should face a choice to build their own wafer testing line or outsource to Pure-play wafer testing house.
H is A Foundry’s production planning manager of wafer testing department, and B company is A’s key customer. B’s products are the communication chips used in Mobile Devices. A provide B turnkey service, that means besides wafer manufacturing, A also supports B to handle wafer yield testing.
Recently B’s new product, X chip is moving into last stage of manufacturing development, and it will be turned into mass production after a quarter. This chip will be used on the world Top 3 cell phone manufacturers’ major products, the demand is very strong. X chip use the newest model of test platform and A Foundry did not have it. So for A Foundry’s testing department, they need to decide to buy new test platform or outsource to subcontractors
By the way, the test time of X chip is twice to triple than other products, and B is also request A to have the capability to deliver huge quantity chips in a very short time. This will be the largest new platform requirement for A’s testing department. Furthermore, even A decides to outsource all wafers, currently there is no subcontractor can provide enough capacity to fulfill this project.
To consider the requirement of cost, quality, delivery, and fast yield feedback, how does H make decision to “build InHouse capacity” or “outsourcing to subcotractor”, then achieve the win-win for B & A self?
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