Soitec inaugurates new Singapore manufacturing plant

Located in the new Pasir Ris Wafer Fab Park, the fully automated, facility is dedicated to the manufacturing of 300-mm SOI wafers. These wafers are used today for the production of high-performance, cutting-edge microprocessors for a growing number of advanced electronic devices, especially leading-edge consumer products that are increasingly manufactured in Asia. Soitec is headquartered in Bernin (Grenoble), France, where it has two high-volume fabs on-site (Bernin I and Bernin II), as well as advanced R&D facilities. The new Singapore fab, known as Pasir Ris 1, is Soitec’s first manufacturing facility in Asia. It represents a strategic part of the group’s investment plan to expand worldwide production capacity, and forge closer relationships with customers worldwide. In parallel, Soitec’s strategic investments in the Pasir Ris fab have accelerated the implementation of a complementary wafer recycling process. This key “refresh” step is now integrated in the manufacturing lines, contributing to the key objective of the Group to reduce costs. Built on a 2.7-hectare site, Pasir Ris 1 has more than 4,000 square meters of clean-room space. Total investment is expected to be approximately 350 million Euros at full capacity. The new fab currently employs more than 100 people. Upon the market’s upturn, the fab is designed to facilitate a swift ramp, up to a final capacity of one million wafers per year and a workforce of 500 people.