Pragmatic opens UK's first 300 mm semiconductor wafer manufacturing facility
Pragmatic Semiconductor has officially opened the UK’s first 300mm semiconductor wafer fabrication line (fab) at Pragmatic Park in Durham. The advanced manufacturing facility produces chips based on Pragmatic’s innovative and unique flexible integrated circuit technology. According to Pragmatic, it sets the standard for smart, sustainable semiconductor manufacturing.
The opening ceremony was attended by HRH The Princess Royal. She was hosted by David Moore, CEO, Pragmatic Semiconductor, with a tour of the clean room and facilities, followed by an unveiling of a site plaque to mark the occasion. Attendees included key customers, ecosystem partners, investors and government officials.
Pragmatic’s FlexICs are low-cost, more sustainable alternatives to silicon chips, ultra-thin, with a flexible form factor they enable connect, sense and compute capabilities, fuelling the Internet of Things (IoT) across multiple sectors including consumer, industrial, healthcare and beyond. The company’s mission is to provide item level intelligence to trillions of smart objects over the next decade across a wide range of applications with significant opportunities in smart packaging of fast-moving consumer goods that will significantly improve levels of reuse and recycling, transforming waste management, and enabling a circular economy. Other use cases include wearables, sensors and flexible controllers.
Pragmatic Park has capacity to host up to nine fabrication lines, each capable of producing billions of chips per year. Pragmatic’s pioneering sustainable approach extends to its manufacturing, using fewer process steps and a more concentrated footprint, than standard silicon fabs. The company’s innovative, optimised manufacturing process supports extremely rapid production cycles of less than 48 hours, at very low cost.
The manufacturing process also uses significantly less energy and less water than typical silicon manufacturing, and fewer harmful gases. Pragmatic’s modular ‘Fab-in-a-Box’ approach, supports co-location of end-to-end FlexIC manufacturing at customers sites, rationalising extended supply chains and providing additional levels of security and resilience. The manufacturing facility enables the company to meet the growing demand for its unique technology from customers worldwide. Over the next five years Pragmatic anticipates creating over 500 highly skilled jobs in the North-East of England and Cambridge.
www.pragmaticsemi.com
Caption: Pragmatic manufacturing line (Picture: Pragmatic)