Novati Foundry

Gigaom writes that Austin, TX-based Novati opens foundry service this Monday, offering image sensor services, among other things: "The company has developed a new type of image sensor for someone trying to build a better camera, ... and it has improved night vision goggles for the military by putting a different type of material on top of the traditional silicon used by chips." Novati belongs to 3D integration company Tezzaron, that acquired SVTC Technologies manufacturing assets in Oct. 2012. The manufacturing facility used to be Sematech fab before SVTC.

Novati's business model is to produce runs of 200-500 wafers for clients that "don’t need to chase Moore’s Law to the new frontiers of physics", offering exceptional flexibility with 200mm and 300mm (BEOL only) equipment. That way customers can try different ideas and develop new devices that are hard to fit to the standard CMOS process flows. Being a subsidiary of Tezzaron, Novati can use its 3D integration ideas with TSV. The company has also licensed Ziptronix wafer bonding patents.

More about Novati is in IFTLE blog: