AMI, MagnaChip continue 0.18-M ultra-low power development
By Ann Steffora Mutschler, Senior Editor -- 6/14/2007
To expand market opportunities for low power medical and high-voltage telecom products, Pocatello, Idaho-based AMI Semiconductor and Seoul, South Korea-based MagnaChip Semiconductor said today that that MagnaChip will manufacture AMI’s 0.35-micron SmartPower technology and the two will continue jointly developing ultra low power (ULP) process technology.
In November 2005, the companies announced they were commencing a 0.18-micron development and foundry relationship.
Since then, the companies have developed a 0.18-micron ULP process meant to allow extended battery life by combining a typical off-current of 0.1pA/um2 for the core logic transistor with an optimized design environment including low-power standard cells and SRAM compilers from Virage Logic.
The ULP process contains embedded EEPROM, standard mixed-signal modules and ultra-high reliability and is targeted at battery powered and other low-power consumer and medical devices.
AMI’s SmartPower 0.35-micron mixed-signal process supports up to 80-volt operation and combines high-density digital circuits, high-voltage circuitry and high-precision analog blocks on a single chip, the company noted.
Christine King, CEO of AMI said that the collaborative effort of both companies will provide customers with leading-edge technology and, thus, advanced products for low-power medical applications, such as hearing aids and implantable devices, as well as high-voltage telecom products, such as highly-integrated power-sourcing equipment, that use SmartPower technology.
Also today, AMI’s parent company, AMIS Holdings Inc. updated its Q2 guidance.
“Business during the second quarter has progressed mostly as we expected since our last update in April,” King said during AMI Semiconductor’s analyst day in San Francisco. “Bookings during the quarter were slightly weaker than anticipated, primarily impacting the automotive and medical markets. Progress on our operational improvement initiatives continues, however the benefit from these improvements is being offset by an unfavorable product mix.”
As a result, the company is now expecting Q2 revenue to be up 2 to 4 percent sequentially, with gross margin is still expected to be roughly flat sequentially. GAAP diluted earnings per share is still expected to be in the range of 7 to 10 cents per diluted share.
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