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Friday, May 30, 2014

LFoundry Rousset Fab Might Return to Life as Thin-Film Vision Sensor Facility

EETimes-Europe, EETimes report that the Commercial Court of Paris, France is considering 12 bids for the bankrupted LFoundry wafer fab in Rousset and its assets; one from General Vision Inc. and 11 others from brokers who wish to acquire the fab equipment and sell it on.

General Vision (Petaluma, CA) is a US company led by expatriate French expects in computer vision and neuromorphic computing and which includes Philippe Lambinet, formerly a corporate strategy officer at STMicroelectronics NV and general manager of ST's digital sector. General Vision is proposing to use the Rousset fab to manufacture neuromorphic chips and image sensors on glass substrates in a joint technology development with Japanese Asahi Glass, under a project call NeuroMem. The proposed chips could include a million neurons in a system that would function like the human visual system and recognize objects in visual inspection and robotic applications. General Vision has presented its plan to former employees at Rousset and said that if the liquidator accepts its proposal that it would need 120 employees by the end of 2014. Over the time General Vision hopes to expand its neuromorphic products manufacturing and return the site to the levels of employment when it was shuttered.

8 comments:

  1. Are you joking gentleman??

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  2. no joking, that is no more and no less the plan presented to former employees

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  3. How many people inside General Vision please?

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  4. not really the point, guess how much employees inside Gemplus -Gemalto now- when it has been set up and how much employees in Apple at its very beginning ? two or three if I do remember

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  5. Well the problem is that such Fab costs a lot of money even it's not filled at all. How GV can finance all the expense before its production ramps up to profitable level? Gemplus was a fab less company, they didn't need to pay any expense of STM's Fab. All the companies start small but a small company cannot offer such expensive facilities before their products accepted massively by customers. It's strange for me, a little bit crazy!

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  6. This sounds like day-dreaming. You want to buy a fab (that has failed twice or maybe more, red flags) and modify it (red flag) for glass substrates electronics in France.

    Good luck!

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  7. good luck with this project which is the future of computing, if the France doesn't want this project, stay at home on the USA.

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  8. The concern is not if France should invest in a technology, but if France (or Europe in general) can operate such Fabs in a financially viable manner, especially with heavy labor union related price-tags in France. We all know how Semicon fabs are performing (or ceasing to exist) Europe-wide.

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