interview WIN
0.25 µm and 0.5 µm processes for building pHEMTs. By 2003 these processes had been tuned for high-
volume production and WIN was ready to start filling its order books. But by then the market was markedly differed from that of the late 1990s, where hype ruled over reality. Demand for optical components had now fallen through the floor, and although more and more GaAs was being used in handsets, the big fabs in this arena were still operating way below their full capacity.
Gold
metallization of 30 GaAs 6-inch wafers in single tool
At this point Chen grabbed the reigns, moving from a back-seat investor with a position on the board to chairman of WIN, where he took responsibility for the company’s activities on a daily basis. This mode of operation continued for several years, until Chen appointed a CEO to take over the helm.
Getting through lean times Although concerned by a lack of orders, Chen had no doubts whatsoever about the strengths of WIN’s long- term prospects. To enable the company to survive through to those golden years when the GaAs IC business would take off, he brought in further investment. Some funding came from banks in Taiwan, and some from Chen and Yeh, the initial investors.
Chen also put a strategy in place to allow WIN to make the best use of this lean period. He believed that it would be foolish to expand the entire business at that time, but he did decide to increase R&D activity so that when the market improved WIN was ready to win business with a broad portfolio of HBT and pHEMT technologies. These could serve many markets, including cellular, satellite communications and point-to- point radio.
It’s a strategy that has born good fruit. In 2004 the company starting making a small number of products for WLAN, and it followed up that success by entering the 2G cellular market. However, business was slow, and the company suffered from a few setbacks along the way, one of which it could do nothing about. In 2005 Taiwan’s III-V industry grabbed the headlines for all the wrong reasons, when Procomp Informatics chairwoman, Sophie Yeh, was found guilty of embezzlement and handed a 14-year jail term. WIN had to explain to customers that Procomp was the exception rather than the rule in Taiwan’s III-V industry, and convince everyone that if they placed their faith in this pure-play foundry, they would not be let down.
WIN also had to watch from the sidelines when one of its competitors in the GaAs foundry market, UK firm Filtronic, won a big supply contract with RFMD for pHEMT switches in 2005. (However, with hindsight, that contract did no favours for Filtronic. This firm became far too dependent on RFMD, who had the upper hand in this partnership and eventually bought the UK fab on very favourable terms.) During that time, however, WIN could console itself with a Japanese contract for pHEMT switches that enabled it to hone this particular technology.
By the middle of the last decade plummeting wafer costs had increased the difficulty for any foundry to turn a profit. While global GaAs revenue in 2006 was very similar to that in 2000, manufacturing volume, in terms of wafer output, had risen six-fold. In other words, even ignoring inflation, wafer prices in 2006 were one-sixth of that at the turn of the millennium. To succeed in such an environment companies would have to mix great technology with high levels of investment and a willingness to take substantial risk, all in return for selling products at relatively low prices.
16
www.compoundsemiconductor.net November/December 2011
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