Q5 Interview - Wes Hansford, The MOSIS Service

Wes Hansford is a director with The MOSIS Service, a US-based independent service provider with access to the fabrication of MPWs, prototypes and low volume production quantities of analogue and mixed signal ICs.  He talks to Electronics Weekly about the most popular processes, which processes and applications show most promise for the future, and where he is seeing growth...

1. What are the most popular processes and why?

CMOS processes are the most popular as such devices form the basis of virtually every microelectronic system today. 65nm and below is where we expect the most growth, although we still receive large numbers of submissions at 0.18um and 0.13um for mixed signal/RF designs. We also see an increased focus in new applications at the higher mm wave frequencies (e.g. 60GHz). One key reason for this is the availability of wide frequency bands at these wavelengths that facilitates applications such as video streaming. For these applications customers are opting to use very high performance SiGe processes such as 0.13um SiGe BiCMOS.

2. What processes and applications show most promise for the future and why?

CMOS applications include the various 802.xx standards for wireless, with everything from low power sensor networks to mobile TV and wireless broadband. We also see good demand for SiGe BiCMOS for wireless and fibre optic communications as well as for radar applications. We expect to see growing interest in high voltage processes as more automotive and power applications for microelectronics come to the fore.

3. What type of customers or applications benefit from your services and have they changed over time?

Our customers range from small start-ups to multinational corporations and everything in between. We also support academic institutions as they provide the new talent to our main users. All our customers benefit from the low cost prototyping of research ideas and new product designs. In addition to the low cost prototyping, many of our customers take advantage of our low volume wafer runs, whereby they can access leading edge technologies but for short production runs, sometimes as low as 3 wafers, where otherwise the foundry would not be able to support them.

4. How do you expect the current recession will affect business?

Naturally, we would expect to see a general reduction in wafer starts going forward, but we would hope that our share of those starts will increase as more companies look to substantially reduce their overall foundry costs. Moreover, with customers re-assessing production volumes downwards to take account of reduced demand, we expect to see more use of our low volume production offering.

5. How is your business split geographically and where are you seeing growth?

Our single biggest market is of course the US, as we have a large base of existing customers here. That said we have good levels of business in Japan, Asia and Europe for our IBM process offerings. Europe is unique in that we work with Europractice in support of some foundries, and thus do not compete with them directly where our process offerings overlap. Regarding growth, we are seeing good growth from Asia, especially China and India, but are also expecting good growth in Europe as we offer more processes of interest in RF/HV.

See also: Q5 - Interviews with electronics industry leaders
Read all the Electronics Weekly Q5 interviews. From ARM's chairman, Sir Robin Saxby, to touchscreen technology firm Zytronic's MD, Mark Cambridge, the business leaders share their particular insights on the UK electronics industry.