Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd. (Singapore) today said it will purchase a 200 mm wafer fab from Hitachi Semiconductor Singapore Pte Ltd for $233M in cash. As part of the deal, Chartered will gain $250-$300M of foundry business from Renesas Technology Corp. (Tokyo), which uses the Hitachi Singapore fab.
The fab has a capacity of ~24,000 wpm, and currently runs 0.15-0.25 µm processes. According to Hitachi, the Singapore subsidiary had revenues of $232M last year, with a net profit of $53.7M. Hitachi Semiconductor Singapore was established in July 1996 as a DRAM fab by Nippon Steel Corp. (Tokyo), EDB Investments Pte Ltd., the investment arm of the Singapore government’s Economic Development Board (EDB), and the Hitachi Group.
The acquisition adds to the four existing 200 mm fabs that Chartered currently operates. Chartered said the deal with Hitachi “will enable Chartered to meet some of the additional requirements of existing customers, capture new business opportunities, and further diversify its customer base.”
The facility is located on a 90,000 m2 campus with building space of 28,000 m2, including ~12,000 m2 of cleanroom space. “Based on the purchase consideration, the investment translates to ~$7M per 1000 wafers output per month capacity, after excluding the carrying value of the building and other current assets and liabilities acquired as part of this transaction,” Chartered said.
Chartered CEO Chia Song Hwee said, “This announcement reflects the progress we have made so far with our value-added technology offerings, and allows us to capitalize the investments we have already made in that area by adding immediately available capacity near our existing campus with a trained employee base of ~800 people.” Chartered said its 2008 capital expenditures are now expected to be $590M, $40M lower than what was communicated earlier, primarily because of lower capital expenditure requirements in existing 200 mm fabs as a result of the Hitachi acquisition.
The sale is part of a series of exit moves since 1999 by the Hitachi Group, which put its DRAM operations into a joint venture with NEC Corp., now called Elpida Memory Inc. (Tokyo), and rolled its system LSI business into Renesas Technology a joint venture with Mitsubishi Electric Corp. (Tokyo).
