CEITEC announces volume production of Chip do Boi device

PORTO ALEGRE, BRAZIL: CEITEC S.A., a Brazilian company that develops and produces application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) has reached volume production for the first semiconductor device designed in-house. The device announced is being manufactured at X-FAB Silicon Foundries in Germany. The announcement marks a major milestone in the country’s effort to develop a domestic microelectronics industry.

CEITEC’s Chip do Boi is an advanced LF-RFID device designed for use in Brazil’s cattle industry as part of a leading-edge system to track livestock. Forecasted domestic demand for the chip is as high as 1.5 million units for 2012 with an expected minimum growth rate of 10 percent a year over the next decade. Chip do Boi is the first chip designed in Brazil by Brazilian engineers in a company that was home grown and home funded to reach volume production at a world-class semiconductor manufacturing facility. CEITEC has been guiding the efforts to foster industry advances in electronics since 2008.

“Today’s volume manufacturing milestone means that chips designed in Brazil will soon hit the market, but more importantly, it signifies the country’s ability to produce world-class technology and lays the foundation for a growing, sustainable industry,” said Dr. Cylon Gonçalves da Silva, president of CEITEC. ““This is an extraordinary achievement and we are happy to have X-FAB Semiconductor Foundries as our manufacturing partner.”

X-FAB Silicon Foundries is one of the world's leading manufacturers for analog/mixed-signal semiconductor applications. The company has been chosen by CEITEC to produce the Chip do Boi design at its facilities in order to serve the market in Brazil and around the world, because X Fab CMOS 0.6 micron technology is the same that will soon be available in CEITEC’s own foundry

Thomas Hartung, VP Marketing at X-FAB remarked: “With the announcement of the Chip do Boi CEITEC has demonstrated its excellent capabilities to successfully launch products into the Brazilian market using a global supply chain. We are proud to be a
long-term partner of CEITEC and to do business with a center for IC development and manufacturing in Brazil. We are looking forward to further intensify our relationship in the future in the field of know-how transfer as well as in manufacturing of high-performance mixed-signal ICs. X-FAB believes that this collaboration and the dynamic growth of the strong Brazilian economy will be the base of our mutual success.”

CEITEC licensed X-FAB’s advanced 0.6 micrometer process technology called XC06, enabling CEITEC to establish the first commercial CMOS semiconductor front-end manufacturing operation in Brazil. On the other hand, X-FAB is able to increase its presence in the emerging and fast-growing Latin American electronics market, with other technology nodes.

Chip do Boi is only the first RFID chip designed by CEITEC SA to go into volume production. The company has announced that two more RFID chips are undergoing performance tests and will go into volume production in 2012.