SUNNYVALE and SAN JOSE, Calif. -- August 11, 2005 --Spansion LLC, the Flash memory venture of AMD (NYSE:AMD) and Fujitsu Limited (TSE:6702), and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSE: 2330, NYSE: TSM) today announced a manufacturing agreement that will augment Spansion’s internal production of its 110 nanometer (nm) MirrorBit™ technology. Pursuant to the agreement, TSMC will supply foundry manufacturing capabilities for Spansion’s family of GL, PL and WS wireless products and GL embedded products based on 110nm MirrorBit technology.
TSMC will phase Spansion’s 110nm process technologies into its production lines exclusively for use in Spansion’s products. Initially, Spansion’s 110nm MirrorBit technology will be fabricated on 200mm wafers. The target production ramp date at TSMC is the second quarter of 2006.
“Our partnership with TSMC will help augment our internal production capability and allow us to more quickly migrate to next-generation technologies,” Bertrand Cambou, president and CEO of Spansion. “Together, we believe we can create a powerful team to compete in the Flash memory market, one of the fastest growing segments of the semiconductor industry. Our collaboration will also give us additional flexibility in our business model as we continue to meet customer demand for our MirrorBit technology.”
“Spansion is a highly innovative company in a growing market,” said TSMC CEO Dr. Rick Tsai. “When combined with TSMC’s manufacturing muscle and industry-leading customer partnerships, this combination makes for a powerful win-win relationship.”
About MirrorBit™ Technology
Spansion’s award-winning MirrorBit™ technology is a proprietary technology, which stores two bits of data in a single memory cell, doubling the density of each memory cell. MirrorBit technology requires fewer manufacturing steps, resulting in higher yields and lower costs, eliminating at least 10 percent of the total manufacturing steps and 40 percent of the most critical manufacturing steps, as compared to floating gate MLC NOR technology.
The Spansion wireless GL product family, with a 1.8-volt and/or 3-volt interface, enables code and data applications in low-end, mid-range and higher-end mobile phones. The Spansion wireless PL product family, with a 3-volt interface, is used for a broad range of mobile phones, from entry level, basic audio-only handsets to audio and data capable phones with higher resolution color displays.
Spansion’s wireless WS product family is optimized for higher-end mobile phones with capabilities such as polyphonic ring tones, enhanced color displays, higher resolution cameras, and larger internal storage for multimedia content including music, videos and pictures. The WS family combines a high-performance burst-mode 1.8-volt interface with Simultaneous Read Write and Advanced Sector Protection features at 64-megabit to 256-megabit densities for code and data requirements.
The Spansion GL-N product family for the embedded market combines expanded storage capacity with high performance and security to enable the next generation of home and automotive electronics, telecom and networking equipment. The GL-N family also includes compatible 512-, 256- and 128-megabit devices to aid customers who design numerous products based on a single platform. Software, pinout and package compatibility allows designers to upgrade, cost-reduce or otherwise modify existing products quickly and easily, without redesigning circuit boards and re-architecting software.
The 256-megabit densities of the WS family and the GL-N family are currently manufactured in volume at the company’s JV-3 manufacturing facility in Aizu-Wakamatsu, Japan; and are planned for manufacture with TSMC.
Spansion Cautionary Statement
This release contains forward-looking statements, which are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Investors are cautioned that forward-looking statements in this release involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations. Risks include the possibility that we may not be able to migrate to, or otherwise obtain, 300mm wafer capacity; to develop new manufacturing technologies using smaller wafer sizes such as 90nm or 65nm; to timely meet our planned production ramp schedule with TSMC; and to obtain manufacturing capacity sufficient to meet customer demand for our products. We urge investors to review in detail the risks and uncertainties in Spansion’s Registration Statement on Form S-1, as amended, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and AMD’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to its Annual Report on form 10-K for the year ended December 26, 2004, and AMD’s Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 26, 2005.
