CMC expands links with international chip foundries

For 37 years hardware technology facilitator CMC Microsystems (CMC) has provided access to leading edge semiconductor fabrication. Since its inception, Kingston ON-based CMC has made it easier for researchers and entrepreneurs to design into advanced processes by combining many designs together into a single fabrication run, making it easier for the manufacturer by giving them a single client point of contact with CMC instead of multiple clients and for the designer by providing technical support and sharing the costs of the project.

Today CMC offers state-of-the-art commercial fabrication services for microelectronics (semiconductors), microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), silicon photonics, and superconducting circuits. Each year CMC combines more than 300 designs into 60 or more fabrication runs, verify that the designs are manufacturable, subsidize fabrication, and provided packaging and test support.

Beginning with Nortel in 1984, CMC has added access to commercial services from:

• Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (TSMC),
• GlobalFoundries in the United States, Germany and Singapore,
• Advanced MicroFoundry (AMF) in Singapore,
• Austrian MicroSystems (AMS) in Austria,
• ST Microelectronics in France,
• MEMSCAP in France, and
• Starcryo in the United States.

In Canada CMC performs multi-project services for:

• Teledyne in Bromont, Quebec,
• C2MI in Bromont, Quebec
• The Canadian Photonic Fabrication Center (CPFC) of the National Research Council (NRC)
• Applied Nanotools in Edmonton, and
• 3IT in Sherbrooke, Quebec

The components designed and submitted by CMC’s clients touch on every aspect of modern life and every economic sector from healthcare, environmental monitoring, industry 4.0, agriculture, resource extraction, and aerospace.

In the future CMC plans to greatly expand the process offerings ‘made in Canada’ through a proposal to the federal government for funding of new commercial processes across the country. There is a bright future for the manufacturing of advanced technologies in Canada.

For more information see the FABrIc proposal at www.cmc.ca/fabric.