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Repair common Windows errors and clear accumulated junk for a smoother, more stable PC - no reinstall needed.Free scan · no reinstallIn 1998, Bordeaux-based Silway SA planned to combine French chip-design teams with a wafer fab in Sofia, Bulgaria, acquired by its parent, EGP Holdings. The strategy was to sell mixed-signal ASICs and application-specific standard products at prices supported by the site’s lower operating costs. The announcement described the fab’s capabilities and Silway’s plans, but does not establish what later happened to the company or plant.
How Silway planned to use the Sofia plant
Silway presented the business as a link between chip design and manufacturing: its French teams would develop products, while the Sofia facility would provide production. In a 1998 EE Times report, the company said it had 60 design engineers and more than 450 designs in its prior design record, alongside 100 semiconductor engineers and operators. European sales manager Ron Burnip described the factory as “It’s a nice medium-sized, mixed-signal fab.”
The commercial argument was cost as well as capability. Silway expected Bulgaria’s lower operating costs to help it compete in price-sensitive telecommunications and industrial applications, while its existing design portfolio offered products and IP to take to market.
What process and capacity did the fab have?
According to Silway as reported by EE Times in 1998, the Sofia site ran a 2.0-micron double-polysilicon mixed-signal CMOS process on 4-inch wafers, at about 5,000 wafers per month. Management said the plant was being migrated to a 1.2-micron double-poly, double-metal process. These are the capabilities and planned migration reported at the time, not a later-verified account of the fab’s production.
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The plant also had a high-voltage vertical MOSFET capability rated at 250 V. Silway said it was moving toward 400 V breakdown in 1999; the report describes that as a goal, not a confirmed outcome.
Was Silway a foundry or an ASIC vendor?
Silway said it would operate as a mixed-signal ASIC vendor and also market application-specific standard products. That is broader than simply offering factory capacity to outside customers: the plan paired manufacturing with design services and the company’s own product and IP portfolio. The 1998 report does not establish whether Silway also offered general-purpose foundry services.
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- Wafer Pattern May Vary from the Product Images. Great to be used as gift, display object, exhibition, educating demonstration, testing, decoration or your collection
- Beautiful microchip pattern structure made by the advanced copper technology
- 90~130nm minimum microchip feature Copper Characterization with TEOS or Black Diamond Low-k ILD on the single crystal silicon wafer
- The original value of un-polished wafer is above $500
- No guarantee for research and other applications
Which products and markets did Silway target?
Silway described several embedded design assets: PIC-compatible 4-bit and 8051-compatible 8-bit microcontroller cores, as well as its own 4-bit and 8-bit Rapido RISC cores. Planned markets included telecommunications, industrial uses, automotive electronics, consumer products, contactless smart cards, and identification.
For contactless applications, the company described transmitters and readers for security cards and for identifying animals or objects with passive tags. This mix of control, mixed-signal, and high-voltage capabilities aligned with applications that did not depend solely on leading-edge digital logic.
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- 5 x 5 inches, 0.67 ounces, 0.03 inches thick. Some wafers are marked with alignment marks.
- The pattern is produced by light diffraction, and its reflective appearance changes with the viewing angle.
- Silicon wafers are fragile—please handle with care.
- Circuit details can be examined under a microscope.
What happened to the Bulgarian wafer fab?
The 10 November 1998 announcement is not enough to determine the plant’s subsequent history. It identifies the Sofia fab as acquired by EGP Holdings and describes Silway’s intended operating model, but does not establish the facility’s later owner, operating status, or any successor company. Those outcomes should not be inferred from the announcement alone.
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