M/A-COM Expands Capacity

LOWELL, Mass., June 12 -- M/A-COM Inc. plans to increase its wafer fabrication capacity by 100 percent. The company is expanding its gallium arsenide (GaAs) wafer fabrication capacity and adding a new high volume six-inch wafer fab manufacturing line. M/A-COM Inc., a unit of Tyco International Ltd., has increased its fab capacity by 400 percent over the past 18 months.
M/A-COM will use equipment located at Sanders' Microelectronics Center in Nashua N.H. Sanders, a Lockheed Martin Company, has agreed to let M/A-COM use its Microelectronics Center over a multi-year period in return for the use of M/A-COM's Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuits (MMICS) which will be manufactured on six-inch GaAs wafers at Sanders' Nashua facility for use in wireless telecommunications applications. The Center contains a 13,000 sq ft clean room foundry/facility using state-of-the-art processing technology and equipment, and specializes in high-performance microwave and millimeter wave devices operating at frequencies from below one to above 100 GHz. The facility and its equipment will meet M/A-COM's special process needs; reducing the time it would normally take to bring the six-inch GaAs wafer line to full operation.