Tuesday, March 2, 2010

TowerJazz announces agreement with IC Design Education Center (IDEC) in Korea

MIGDAL HAEMEK, ISRAEL & DAEJEON, KOREA: TowerJazz, the global specialty foundry leader, announced a agreement with Korea’s IC Design Education Center (IDEC) to accelerate the country’s specialty IC design expertise.

Under the terms of the agreement, IDEC will provide Korean universities with access to a broad range of specialty process technologies from TowerJazz’s MH fab through discounted multi-project wafer (MPW) shuttles. The agreement underscores TowerJazz’s highly appreciated industry innovation, technology leadership, and growing customer momentum in Korea which includes engagements with C&S Technology, Cesign, Dongwoon, SemiHow, and others.

A co-operation ceremony was held in Korea on February 18, 2010 by IDEC and TowerJazz CEO, Russell Ellwanger with several professors from various leading universities. IDEC, established in 1995 with support from the Ministry of Commerce, Industry & Energy and major semiconductor companies, promotes projects for the purpose of national competitiveness by educating highly qualified design experts through support in Korean universities.

“Chip production in an academic environment can be challenging, but the MPW program offered by IDEC gives students the opportunity for actual design experience which is essential to their progress and future careers. By gaining access to the Company’s world leading specialty technologies and interactions with their renowned technical staff, we can enable the students to accumulate abundant design experience and we can nurture highly qualified IC designers,” said Dr. Chong-Min Kyung, IDEC Executive Director. “We are very pleased to work with TowerJazz to further advance Korea’s academic R&D achievements.”

Russell Ellwanger, TowerJazz CEO, explained: “Korea is a thriving region for technical and manufacturing innovation and will remain a center for future technological advancements. We feel that our collaboration with IDEC will be advantageous for the students by providing them practical and challenging experiences at an early stage in their career training and we will, as well, be extending the cooperation to include internships in our design center in Netanya, Israel to the top Ph.D. students of the several leading universities.

“We have been encouraged by the wide acceptance of our technical excellence and differentiation as measured by the continued and rising number of customer engagements in Korea, in which we are targeting several hundreds of millions of revenue over the coming years. This program is our way of early partnering with the next generation of Korean technical leadership. This, in turn, will have long term benefits to the students/universities, Korean industry, TowerJazz and overall Korean/Israeli relations.”

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