An integrated device manufacturer (IDM) is a

semiconductor A semiconductor is a material which has an electrical conductivity value falling between that of a conductor, such as copper, and an insulator, such as glass. Its resistivity falls as its temperature rises; metals behave in the opposite way. ...

company which designs, manufactures, and sells

integrated circuit An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit (also referred to as an IC, a chip, or a microchip) is a set of electronic circuits on one small flat piece (or "chip") of semiconductor material, usually silicon. Large numbers of tiny M ...

(IC) products. IDM is often used to refer to a company which handles

semiconductor manufacturing Semiconductor device fabrication is the process used to manufacture semiconductor devices, typically integrated circuit (IC) chips such as modern computer processors, microcontrollers, and memory chips such as NAND flash and DRAM that are pres ...

in-house, compared to a

fabless semiconductor company Fabless manufacturing is the design and sale of hardware devices and semiconductor chips while outsourcing their fabrication (or ''fab'') to a specialized manufacturer called a semiconductor foundry. These foundries are typically, but not exclus ...

, which

outsource Outsourcing is an agreement in which one company hires another company to be responsible for a planned or existing activity which otherwise is or could be carried out internally, i.e. in-house, and sometimes involves transferring employees and ...

s production to a third-party

semiconductor fabrication plant In the microelectronics industry, a semiconductor fabrication plant (commonly called a fab; sometimes foundry) is a factory where devices such as integrated circuits are manufactured. Fabs require many expensive devices to function. Estimates ...

. Examples of IDMs are

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...

Samsung The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...

, and

Texas Instruments Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American technology company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, that designs and manufactures semiconductors and various integrated circuits, which it sells to electronics designers and manufacturers globall ...

, examples of fabless companies are

AMD Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While it initially manufact ...

Nvidia Nvidia CorporationOfficially written as NVIDIA and stylized in its logo as VIDIA with the lowercase "n" the same height as the uppercase "VIDIA"; formerly stylized as VIDIA with a large italicized lowercase "n" on products from the mid 1990s to ...

, and

Qualcomm Qualcomm () is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Diego, California, and incorporated in Delaware. It creates semiconductors, software, and services related to wireless technology. It owns patents critical to the 5G, 4 ...

, and examples of pure play foundries are

GlobalFoundries GlobalFoundries Inc. (GF or GloFo) is a multinational semiconductor contract manufacturing and design company incorporated in the Cayman Islands and headquartered in Malta, New York. Created by the divestiture of the manufacturing arm of AMD, t ...

TSMC Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC; also called Taiwan Semiconductor) is a Taiwanese multinational semiconductor contract manufacturing and design company. It is the world's most valuable semiconductor company, the world' ...

, and UMC. Due to the dynamic nature of the

semiconductor industry The semiconductor industry is the aggregate of companies engaged in the design and fabrication of semiconductors and semiconductor devices, such as transistors and integrated circuits. It formed around 1960, once the fabrication of semiconduct ...

, the term IDM has become less accurate than when it was coined.

OSATs

The term OSATs means "outsourced semiconductor assembly and test providers". OSATs have dominated IC packaging and testing.http://semiengineering.com/tag/osats/ outsourced semiconductor assembly and test providers (OSATs)

Fabless operations

The terms fabless (fabrication-less),

foundry A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal into a mold, and removing the mold material after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals pr ...

, and IDM are now used to describe the role a company has in a business relationship. For example,

Freescale Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. was an American semiconductor manufacturer. It was created by the divestiture of the Semiconductor Products Sector of Motorola in 2004. Freescale focused their integrated circuit products on the automotive, embed ...

owns and operates fabrication facilities (fab) where it manufactures many

chip Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) is a type of immunoprecipitation experimental technique used to investigate the interaction between proteins and DNA in the cell. It aims to determine whether specific proteins are associated with specific geno ...

product lines, as a traditional IDM would. Yet it is known to contract with merchant foundries for other products, as would fabless companies.

Manufacturers

Many electronic manufacturing companies engage in business that would qualify them as an IDM: *

Analog Devices Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI), also known simply as Analog, is an American multinational semiconductor company specializing in data conversion, signal processing and power management technology, headquartered in Wilmington, Massachusetts. The co ...

ams AG ams-OSRAM AG, formerly known as austriamicrosystems AG (originated from Austria Mikro Systeme) and ams AG (before acquiring Osram), is an Austrian electronics company that designs and manufactures sensors for small form factor, low power, high ...

* Belling * Changxin Memory Technologies * Cypress Semiconductor * CR Microelectronics *

Fujitsu is a Japanese multinational information and communications technology equipment and services corporation, established in 1935 and headquartered in Tokyo. Fujitsu is the world's sixth-largest IT services provider by annual revenue, and the l ...

* Good-Ark Electronics *

Hitachi () is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. It is the parent company of the Hitachi Group (''Hitachi Gurūpu'') and had formed part of the Nissan ''zaibatsu'' and later DKB Group and Fuyo G ...

* IBM *

IM Flash Technologies IM Flash Technologies, LLC was the semiconductor company founded in January 2006, by Intel Corporation and Micron Technology, Inc. IM Flash produced 3D XPoint used in data centers and high end computers. It had a 300mm wafer fab in Lehi, Utah, Un ...

Infineon Infineon Technologies AG is a German semiconductor manufacturer founded in 1999, when the semiconductor operations of the former parent company Siemens AG were spun off. Infineon has about 50,280 employees and is one of the ten largest semicon ...

Intersil Intersil is an American semiconductor company headquartered in Milpitas, California. As of February 24, 2017, Intersil is a subsidiary of Renesas. The previous Intersil was formed in August 1999 through the acquisition of the semiconductor busi ...

LSI Corporation LSI Logic Corporation, an American company founded in Milpitas, California, was a pioneer in the ASIC and EDA industries. It evolved over time to design and sell semiconductors and software that accelerated storage and networking in data cente ...

* Matsushita *

Maxim Integrated Products Maxim Integrated, a subsidiary of Analog Devices, designs, manufactures, and sells analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits for the automotive, industrial, communications, consumer, and computing markets. Maxim's product portfolio includes ...

Micron Technology Micron Technology, Inc. is an American producer of computer memory and computer data storage including dynamic random-access memory, flash memory, and USB flash drives. It is headquartered in Boise, Idaho. Its consumer products, includin ...

Mitsubishi The is a group of autonomous Japanese multinational companies in a variety of industries. Founded by Yatarō Iwasaki in 1870, the Mitsubishi Group historically descended from the Mitsubishi zaibatsu, a unified company which existed from 1870 ...

National Semiconductor National Semiconductor was an American semiconductor manufacturer which specialized in analog devices and subsystems, formerly with headquarters in Santa Clara, California. The company produced power management integrated circuits, display d ...

Nexperia Nexperia is a semiconductor manufacturer headquartered in Nijmegen, the Netherlands.It is a subsidiary of the partially state-owned Chinese company Wingtech Technology. It has front-end factories in Hamburg, Germany and Greater Manchester, Engla ...

* NXP (formerly Philips + Freescale Semiconductors) * OMMIC *

ON Semiconductor onsemi (stylized in lowercase; legally ON Semiconductor Corporation; formerly ON Semiconductor until August 5, 2021) is an American semiconductor supplier company, based in Phoenix, Arizona and ranked #483 on the 2022 ''Fortune'' 500 based on it ...

* Pericom *

Qorvo Qorvo is an American semiconductor company that designs, manufactures, and supplies radio-frequency systems for applications that drive wireless and broadband communications, as well as foundry services. The company, which trades on NASDAQ, was c ...

Renesas is a Japanese semiconductor manufacturer headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, initially incorporated in 2002 as Renesas Technology, the consolidated entity of the semiconductor units of Hitachi and Mitsubishi excluding their dynamic random-access mem ...

(formerly

NEC is a Japanese multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. The company was known as the Nippon Electric Company, Limited, before rebranding in 1983 as NEC. It provides IT and network solu ...

semiconductor) *

SK Hynix SK hynix Inc. is a South Korean supplier of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) chips and flash memory chips. Hynix is the world's second-largest memory chipmaker (after Samsung Electronics) and the world's third-largest semiconductor company. ...

STMicroelectronics STMicroelectronics N.V. commonly referred as ST or STMicro is a Dutch multinational corporation and technology company of French-Italian origin headquartered in Plan-les-Ouates near Geneva, Switzerland and listed on the French stock market. ST ...

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

Tsinghua Unigroup Tsinghua Unigroup is a Chinese technology and semiconductor manufacturer that also supplies digital infrastructure and services to domestic and global markets. Based in Beijing, it is among the country’s largest technology conglomerates; subsid ...

Toshiba , commonly known as Toshiba and stylized as TOSHIBA, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure syste ...

Reading

Understanding fabless IC technology By Jeorge S. Hurtarte, Evert A. Wolsheimer, Lisa M. Tafoya
1.4.1 Integrated device manufacturer Page 8

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Integrated Device Manufacturer Semiconductor device fabrication