Polar Semiconductor licenses Tower high voltage process

Polar Semiconductor in the US has finalized an agreement to license the robust TS18PM power process from Tower Semiconductor.

The deal gives Polar a 180nm Process Design Kit (PDK) for making devices at its automotive qualified 200mm fab in Bloomington, Minnesota. This will make Polar the only foundry in the US capable of high voltage power BCD bipolar-CMOS-DMOS wafer production.

“Tower is very pleased to expand onshore access of its technologies in support of the U.S. Aerospace and Defense community through this license arrangement with Polar,” said Tower Semiconductor’s General Manager for Aerospace & Defense, Mike Scott. “This mature technology is in high-volume production in Japan and Israel serving automotive, industrial, and consumer applications and Polar will provide access for customers that have requirements to manufacture in the U.S. such as USG Primes serving the Aerospace and Defense market.”

Polar has received $525m from the US Chips Act once it had restructured to be US owned.

“One of the key tenets of Polar’s transformation roadmap is our commitment to support US National Security interests as we work to expand our facility and broaden our technology base,” said Surya Iyer, President and COO of Polar. “All of us at Polar are very excited to offer our customers a versatile process technology manufactured in an automotive quality fab, and a robust PDK to enable design of their innovative products. Building on the announcement of a direct funding award as part of the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act and investment through the Minnesota Forward Fund, our strong and growing partnership with Tower is a major step forward in becoming an independent, U.S.-owned foundry and supporting technologies that are critical to DoD customers.”

Polar’s semiconductor manufacturing facilities operate with BCD, BiCMOS and discrete MOSFETs and IGBTs on 200mm silicon wafers for the power and sensor markets.