Sipex Offers Multiple Fab Sources for its Products
HANGZHOU, China, Feb. 27 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ --Sipex Corporation
(OTC: SIPX.PK) today announced the signing of a definitive agreement with
Hangzhou Silan Microelectronics Co., Ltd. and Hangzhou Silan Integrated
Circuit Co., Ltd. This agreement covers foundry manufacturing, product
licenses, process technology transfers and fab equipment sales.
"We are very excited to finalize our agreement," said Ralph Schmitt, CEO
of Sipex. "We are pleased with the progress of transferring our process
technologies to Silan. They have been a great partner to date, and with the
formalization of our relationship I expect we will be even more successful
together."
Silan has already seen excellent yielding material out of two different
process technologies. The expectation is to complete all process
qualifications in this year. During the transfer, production at the Sipex
Milpitas fab has continued with excellent output.
"I want to thank our employees in Milpitas who have kept our fab fully
operational during this transition time," stated Joel Camarda, SVP of
Operations for Sipex. "We continue to need their support as we transition to a
fabless company. Silan and Sipex engineers have also been working diligently
to ensure that we meet the scheduled transfer. This is critical to ensuring
support of our customers."
Silan currently has two 5-inch fab lines that are running 20,000 IC
wafers/month, plus 20,000 discrete product wafers per month. The production
capacity of the Silan fab will ramp to 34,000 wafers per month, providing
Sipex with significant upside potential. The Sipex equipment will be sent to
Silan after the transition is complete, giving Silan the ability to increase
their output by migrating to the 6-inch equipment.
Fan Wei-Hong, general manager of Silan-IC, expressed his support of the
partnership. "This agreement will enable both companies to grow our businesses
and be more competitive in the analog market. The competencies of the two
companies match very well."
Sipex and Silan-IC expect to further evolve this strategic relationship
into other areas for expansion of their businesses. This will allow for
significant leverage in attacking the rapidly growing Greater China
marketplace.
About Sipex Corporation
Sipex Corporation is a semiconductor company that designs, manufactures
and markets high performance, value-added analog integrated circuits (IC).
Sipex serves the broad analog signal processing market with interface, power
management and optical storage ICs for use in automotive, portable products,
computing, communications, and networking infrastructure markets. The company
is headquartered in Milpitas, California with additional offices in Belgium,
Canada, China, Germany, Japan and Taiwan. Sipex sells products direct and
through its distribution channels. For more information about Sipex, visit
http://www.sipex.com.
About Silan Microelectronics
Hangzhou Silan Microelectronics Co., LTD., a company incorporated in
Hangzhou, China ("Silan"), is an integrated circuit design company focused on
integrated circuits used in audio/video equipment and other consumer products.
In March 2003 Silan had a successful IPO on the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE)
as the first IC design company listed on the SSE (stock code 600460).
About Silan-IC
Hangzhou Silan Integrated Circuits Co., Ltd., a company incorporated in
Xiasha Economic & Technology Development Area, Hangzhou, China ("Silan-IC"),
manufactures bipolar and BiCMOS technologies in two wafer fabs with a total
clean room area of more than 10,000 square meters.
Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements in this communication regarding the transaction between
Sipex and Silan, including the expected benefits of the transaction, future
opportunities for Sipex, the manufacturing of its products, the timing of the
qualification of Sipex's processes at Silan, the success of Sipex's new
strategy, the expected synergies between Sipex and Silan and any other
statements regarding Sipex's or Silan's future expectations, beliefs, goals or
prospects constitute forward-looking statements. Any statements that are not
statements of historical fact (including statements containing the word
"expectations" and similar expressions) should also be considered forward-
looking statements. A number of important risks and other factors could cause
actual results or events to differ materially from those indicated by such
forward-looking statements, including that regulatory approvals required for
the transaction may not be obtained on the terms expected or on the
anticipated schedule; the possibility that the parties may be unable to
achieve all or any of the expected benefits of the relationship within the
anticipated time-frames or at all; the risk that the expected synergies
between Sipex and Silan may not be as significant as currently anticipated;
the possibility that manufacturing processes and wafer testing may not be
qualified following the transfer from Sipex to Silan; the possibility that
operating costs, customer loss, transition times and business disruption
(including, without limitation, difficulties in maintaining relationships with
employees, customers, clients or suppliers) may be greater than expected
following the transaction. Sipex assumes no obligation to update the
information in this communication, except as otherwise required by law.
Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking
statements that speak only as of the date hereof.
For additional information, contact:
Ralph Schmitt, CEO
Tel: 408-934-7500
Email: rschmitt@sipex.com
SOURCE Sipex Corporation
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Related links:
http://www.sipex.com
Company News On-Call:
http://www.prnewswire.com/comp/111683.html
CONTACT:
Ralph Schmitt, CEO of Sipex Corporation,
+1-408-934-7500, or rschmitt@sipex.com
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