Cypress currently makes more than 22 different products on its 90-nm C9 process. One of those products, the 72-Mbit static random access memory (SRAM), helped Cypress leapfrog the competition with the world's highest-density and highest-bandwidth SRAM.
"Fab 4 in Minnesota has become a symbol of Cypress's cutting-edge technology over the past 16 years and remains a significant strategic asset for our future," said Cypress's President and CEO, T.J. Rodgers. "It will continue to be the site where much of Cypress's strategic technologies are first brought into mass production."
In addition to making SRAMs, Cypress's Fab 4 also produces USB devices, programmable clocks and many different varieties of PSoC mixed-signal chips, which have become the centerpiece of Cypress's new programmable products strategy-an effort to bring more higher value devices to market that can be customized by customers for end products.
Fab 4 has been a launchpoint for Cypress process and manufacturing innovation. In August 1995, it became the first Cypress fab to begin high-volume eight-inch (200-mm) wafer manufacturing. In July 2005, the fab qualified Cypress's PSoC mixed-signal array for high-volume production. In 2006, it began sampling the company's West Bridgeâ„¢ Antiochâ„¢ device, a dual-port memory chip for cell phones that allows users to talk on the phone while downloading music from their PC.
"The winning combination of SRAMs and PSoC provides both short-term technology drivers as well as an avenue for long-term growth," stated Bill Dunnigan, senior vice president of fab administration at Cypress's Fab 4 facility. "This allows Cypress to incrementally invest and increase its 130-nm and 90-nm capacity in a cost-effective manner, while simultaneously developing advanced derivative technologies from these platforms" - Cypress.
