Milpitas, CA. After several years of close partnership, SEMI and the Fab Owners Association (FOA) announced that they have fully integrated. Driving manufacturing efficiencies remains the overriding purpose of the FOA—where the “A” now stands for “Alliance.” With FOA’s integration with SEMI, the association will leverage SEMI’s global infrastructure and connections to more than 2,000 members around the world to extend its platforms for collaborative networking and benchmarking manufacturing operations.
“FOA members operate some of the most innovative and efficient fabrication facilities and are hotbeds for new optimization methodologies in integrated circuit and micro-electromechanical production,” said Ajit Manocha, president and CEO of SEMI. “The integration of FOA with SEMI brings together firsthand understanding of manufacturing challenges so we can help all SEMI members achieve higher operating efficiency.”
With integration complete, FOA is managed as a special interest group (SIG) within SEMI. FOA member companies will become full SEMI members, with FOA continuing to expand its global membership through SEMI’s global network, while maintaining its unique community.
Established in 2004, FOA brings to SEMI a focus on addressing common semiconductor operations and manufacturing issues. The full integration comes after more than a year in which the organizations operated under an Association Management Agreement where SEMI provided FOA association services and deepened its association with FOA. SEMI-FOA will continue to focus on manufacturing efficiency, including the group’s popular benchmark activities, to enable best practices among FOA members.
“FOA members manufacture a wide variety of complex devices, many of which make up the applications we see in some of the most advanced automotive systems, medical devices, smart manufacturing, and general IoT,” said Dale Miller, an FOA director and senior director, Fab 9 Semiconductor Manufacturing Operations, GlobalFoundries. “Given the strong growth in these applications, FOA members must keep the fabs humming at full capacity while always pursuing higher yield and lower cost. To help maintain this momentum, FOA will continue to enable members to collaborate on best practices and benchmarking while focusing on key issues such as cycle-time, yield, and tool performance.”