Elettronica Plus

Apple Buys Wafer Fab in San JoseERT

View of the Maxim fab acquired by Apple(Image: Google and SV Business Journal)

Apple Inc. has bought a wafer fab in San Jose, Calif. from analog and mixed-signal chip vendor Maxim Integrated Products Inc. Apple paid $18.2 million for the plant.

The unit is fully operational and included 197 pieces of chip manufacturing equipment from top makers – Applied Materials, Hitachi, Novellus, Tokyo Electron, KLA and ASML – suitable for production at nodes from 0.6-micron down to 90nm, with the bulk at 0.35-micron to 180nm.

Apple is unlikely to use the fab for production of its main chips, for which it uses foundries TSMC and Samsung, but could use the facility for R&D activities related to components such as mixed-signal devices, MEMS and image sensors and for packaging operations