What is Foundry?

A company or business model that specializes in manufacturing semiconductors designed by other companies.

Field: Semiconductor industry and market

Foundry in the explanations

Questions that mention Foundry (5)

  1. What is the set of design data, including design rules, device models and cell libraries, that a foundry provides to designers called?
  2. Which correctly describes a 'foundry' in the semiconductor industry?
  3. What is the scheme called in which a foundry puts designs from several customers on one wafer (one mask set) for prototyping?
  4. Which region is known for an especially heavy concentration of contract (foundry) manufacturing of advanced logic semiconductors?
  5. Which company, headquartered in Taiwan, holds the largest share of the world's foundry (contract chip manufacturing) market?

Related terms

Fabless PDK (process design kit) DRC (design rule check) LVS MPW (multi-project wafer) ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) Dennard scaling Discrete semiconductor IDM (integrated device manufacturer) Moore's law

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