Fujitsu has started its first 40nm Asic project with a European customer and sees signs of confidence returning to the telecoms sector.
“People have confidence to invest in major Asic projects again,” Mark Ellins, director of common technologies at Fujitsu Microelectronics Europe, told EW.
Ellins said that Fujitsu started its first 40nm Asic project in April.
“We are now seeing new developments in the high-end telecoms sector,” said Ellins.
Fujitsu will rename its European microelectronics business Fujitsu Semiconductor Europe next month.
The move follows Fujitsu’s rebranding of it global components business in April.
“Our name change reflects more accurately the focus of our activities, namely semiconductor products, solutions and related services,” said Brendan McKearney, managing director of Fujitsu Semiconductor Europe.
Based in Langen, near Frankfurt, Germany, the company designs standard products and Asics for automotive, multimedia and telecoms markets in Europe.
It has design centres in Maidenhead, UK, Germany and Austria.
According to Ellins, Fujitsu’s plans for low-carbon products focuses on Europe’s growing solar power and wind generation industries.
Another important product area for Fujitsu is microcontrollers with a focus on the automotive and smart-metering markets.
Last year, Fujitsu expanded its European software capabilities with the acquisition of Comneon’s software development centre in Linz, Austria.
The centre gave the company an embedded software activity supporting the automotive sector.
Plans for the smart metering market include a collaboration with Zaragoza-based company, Advanced Digital Design.
See: Fujitsu puts low-energy devices and ARM at centre of plans