武汉新芯化身XMC，与中芯国际再无瓜葛

在近日于上海开幕的Semicon China上，一直保持低调态度的中国晶圆代工业者武汉新芯(Wuhan Xinxin Semiconductor Manufacturing)以新创晶圆代工厂之姿现身，并公布了新的企业识别标志与名称──英文简称为XMC 。 XMC拥有一支国际化的管理团队，几乎半数主管都拥有跨国企业经验，曾任职于英特尔(Intel)、IBM与特许(Chartered)等半导体大厂。 产业界对“武汉新芯”这家公司的印象，可能总是与中芯国际(SMIC) 联想在一起，但XMC的高层倾向于消除那一段记忆。曾任职IBM长达25年，目前在XMC执掌市场行销与业务的高层主管 Walter Lange 接受EETimes美国版编辑访问时表示，该公司“经常被误解”，而今日的XMC：“已经不再是中芯国际的姊妹公司。” XMC 被认为与中芯国际关系紧密，应是回溯到2006年武汉市官方建立该晶圆厂那时，委托中芯国际管理该晶圆厂，而武汉市政府会支付中芯一笔“托管费”。一开始 看起来这对中芯国际来说是笔轻松生意，但产业界当时咸认中芯国际对武汉新芯的管理有点心不在焉，而且成效也不尽理想，并未让该公司在晶圆代工市场闯出名号。 今日的XMC已经脱胎换骨； Lange表示，该公司并不是要以市场上晶圆代工龙头台积电(TSMC)，或是新秀 Globalfoundries 等具备先进制程的同业为竞争目标，而是定位为一家“提供主流制程服务”的晶圆代工厂，而他们锁定“差异化(with a twist)”的技术开发，也就是与特定客户在合作一开始就紧密联系、了解他们的制程需求，提出客制化的制程方案。

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本文授权编译自EE Times，版权所有，谢绝转载 本文下一页：XMC的客户群何在？

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{pagination} XMC制程技术蓝图 而有些业界人士可能误以为XMC就是一家位处边陲地带、使用二手旧设备、表现不怎样的中国晶圆厂，但Lange强调绝非如此；他表示，XMC是一家12寸晶圆代工厂，而且不是用8寸晶圆厂的旧设备改装。 XMC 有两条晶圆生产线，每条线的产能可达到每月3万片晶圆；不过目前该公司只启用其中一条生产线。Lange表示，现在XMC的产能开到每月1万2,000片晶圆，产能利用率达到九成，而该公司并不会盲目冲高产量，会根据与客户的协议来调整产能；他并指出，XMC的营收与2006年相较已经成长一倍，而且“已经达到正向现金流”。 至于XMC的客户群何在？据该公司指出，AMD自2008年以来就与XMC合作，生产60纳米与45纳米的NOR闪存；此外XMC最近也宣布与中国NOR闪存供货商北京兆易创新科技(GigaDevice)建立长期伙伴关系。 目前XMC生产的产品包括60/45纳米MirrorBit NOR闪存，以及90/65纳米ETOX NOR闪存，而该公司表示其设备可支持至32纳米的逻辑与内存制程，并有一条新的生产线，可支持3D IC制程。 除了Lange之外，让XMC改头换面的国际化管理团队成员，还包括曾任职英特尔制程技术研发主管、特许技术长、中芯国际营运长的杨士宁(Simon Young)，他目前担任XMC执行长。执掌XMC技术研发的梅绍宁(Shaoning Mei)，则曾任职IBM、飞利浦(Philips)与恩智浦半导体(NXP)，先前担任华虹NEC首席技术官。 目前XMC拥有1,000名员工，其中包括20位海外专家；Lange表示，与上海相较，该公司的人员流动率较低，而在XMC任职的外地员工也有减少的趋势，因为目前在武汉当地已有不少工程师人才可供选择。 本文授权编译自EE Times，版权所有，谢绝转载 编译：Judith Cheng 参考英文原文：Chinese foundry gets makeover, new ID，by Junko Yoshida

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• 从“辛亥战役”到“芯核战役”：中国半导体“武汉保卫战”的胜利FlUesmc

{pagination} Chinese foundry gets makeover, new ID Junko Yoshida Newly minted XMC, formerly Wuhan XinXin, is not another not-so-successful foundry using hand-me-down tools located in the middle of nowhere. SHANGHAI--Wuhan Xinxin Semiconductor Manufacturing, a Chinese foundry company that has maintained a relatively low profile in the West so far, came to Semicon China Tuesday (March 19) to introduce itself as an independent foundry startup, complete with a new identify. Its makeover now a fait accompli, it has turned itself into XMC. The company has a newly installed international management team. Roughly half of its executives have significant experience at multinationals such as Intel, IBM and Chartered. XMC also announced an expanded partnership deal with Spansion on 32-nm flash memory production. There are industry observers who have followed the ups and downs of Wuhan Xinxin since the early 2000’s and were aware of its ties with Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC) at that time. They might hold a very different view of the Wuhan-based foundry today. As though hoping to erase that memory, an XMC executive notes that the company “has been often misunderstood.” The executive, Walter Lange, stressed this point in an interview with EE Times. Lange, with 25 years of experience at IBM, is now responsible for XMC’s marketing and sales. XMC today, Lange emphasized, is “not a sister company of SMIC.” XMC’s perceived close ties to SMIC date back when the city of Wuhan built the foundry, breaking ground in 2006. At that time, SMIC offered to “manage” the foundry, and earned money by charging Wuhan a business management fee. While that looked like a cushy deal for SMIC in the beginning, industry critics recall that SMIC “managed” Wuhan Xinxin “half-heartedly” and brought disappointing results, failing to create a strong foundry presence. XMC also claims to be different today because it’s not chasing down the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) or Globalfoundries Inc. XMC is set up to do foundry service that’s “anything but a mainstream offering,” said Lange. Rather than competing head-to-head with TSMC on the bleeding-edge process technology race, XMC is focused on developing technology “with a twist,” as Lange put it. XMC sees its mission as close partnerships with selected customers from the get-go, while discussing manufacturing process requirements with them. “We customize our process technology for our customers,” Lange explained. Many observers might falsely recognize XMC as yet another not-so-successful Chinese foundry located in the middle of nowhere, using hand-me-down tools. XMC is definitely not that, according to Lange. Even though sometimes described as a “second-tier city,” Wuhan has a population of 10 million, said Lange, with a million college students. Located at the joint of the Yangtze and Han Rivers, Wuhan is at almost equidistant (two-hour flight) from Beijing or Shanghai. Wuhan is at almost equidistant from Beijing or Shanghai Room to grow XMC is a foundry with 300-mm wafers, saddled with no legacy of old 200-mm wafers. XMC has two fab shells, each with a capacity of 30,000 wafers per month. While the company currently uses only one shell, it has the capacity to handle 60,000 wafers per month in total when fully equipped. Today, XMC is churning out 12,000 wafers per month, “90 percent of which are filled,” said Lange. “We don’t believe in ‘build it, they will come.’ We are ramping up our capacity based on partner engagements,” explained Lange. Lange claimed that the foundry has been doubling its revenue since 2006, and “we are already cash flow positive.” So, who are XMC’s customers? Spansion has been working with XMC since 2008, with XMC doing both 60-nm and 45-nm productions for Spansion’s NOR Flash. XMC also recently announced a long-term supply agreement with GigaDevice, a Beijing-based, red hot NOR flash company, poised to grow its business worldwide. XMC has another partner, whose identity the foundry declined to disclose. This unnamed partner alone, however, is using up to10,000 wafers per month, according to Lange. Due to its customization strategy, XMC won’t be able to serve hundreds of customers, but the company appears to have several more “partners.” XMC’s current products include 60-45nm MirrorBit NOR Flash and 90-65nm ETOX NOR Flash. The company claims to have equipment capacity to support logic and memory down to 32nm. XMC also has a new specialty technology line to support 3D IC (Wafer backside processing and stacking). Critical partner for Spansion As Spansion drives its flash memory products further into embedded markets such as automotive, telecommunication, industrial and CE products, “Our expanded deal with XMC becomes critical for our NOR flash memory products in the future,” said Jackson Huang, vice president at Spansion. XMC, already proven as a faithful partner to AMD, has been augmenting products manufactured at Spansion’s own fab in Austin, Texas. “XMC is important to Spansion’s fab-lite strategy,” Huang added. Huang also added that as a graphical user interface in embedded systems gets more complex requiring fast response, “we need to be able to offer higher density, higher performance, cost-effective NOR flash at 32-nm node.” XMC’s fab is qualified to produce Spansion’s embedded NOR flash products for the automotive market, getting all of its certifications in order. The performance level [of embedded NOR flash] can be maintained at high, even extreme temperature. XMC also promises the longevity [as long as 10 years or more] of such NOR flash, required for telecommunication equipment. Perhaps most important in the XMC makeover is its completely new management team. Roughly half the top executives have international backgrounds. Its CEO Simon Young cut his teeth as R&D and manufacturing director of logic technology at Intel. He later worked at Chartered Semiconductor as CTO. Then Young became COO at SMIC. Shaoning Mei, responsible for XMC’s technology development, previously worked at IBM, Philips and NXP, and later served as CTO of Huahong NEC. Lange, the ex-IBMer, helped the Big Blue establish IBM Common Platform and its partnership strategy. He takes pride in that the playbook he helped write for IBM is now being applied to XMC – in fostering its partnership strategy. Lange also served as VP of marketing at Chartered Semiconductor. Through his Chartered days, he got to know Young, who gave Lange a call last summer and asked him to join in Wuhan. Today, XMC has about 1,000 employees including 20 overseas experts. “Compared to Shanghai, the turnover of our workforce is much lower, and the number of expats working for XMC is dropping since we can now hire engineers locally,” said Lange. XMC's booth at Semicon China