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Soitec's half-year consolidated results for its 2005-2006
financial year produced record revenues of 114.6 million Euro's. Net income
increased to 3.7 million Euros compared to a loss of 7.1 million Euros in the
same period last year, which marked the return to profitability.
Bernin I, Soitec's 200mm SOI wafer production facility had 8
lines in production and returned operating margins of 32.5 percent as near full
capacity was reached. Bernin II, its 300mm facility had 4 lines in production,
producing 20,000 SOI wafers per month and had reached around 20 percent
operating margins.
Soitec told financial analysts today, during a conference
call that the company expected to have 8, 300mm line in operation by the end
2006, at least doubling 300mm SOI production.
Demand for 300mm wafers was now coming from a much broader
base of customers and applications, executives outlined. Current demand was
primarily seen from AMD's 200mm facility, Fab 30, which had reached full
capacity earlier in the year. Demand was also strong from the pre-release ramp
of Xbox360, which is being fabricated by IBM and Chartered on 300mm wafers.
A further wave of growth is coming from the PS3 console
launch next spring as well as the ramp of AMD's 300mm fab in Dresden, Germany.
Soitec highlighted that the company had negotiated a new
July 05 to June 06 contract with AMD for both 200mm SOI wafers and 300mm SOI
wafers. Last years contract amounted to a minimum of 50 million Euro's, which
was primarily for 200mm wafers.
Now the company has stated that the AMD business for both
Fab 30 and Fab 36 would be at least 100 million Euro's, due to the 300mm ramp
at Fab 36.
The company also noted that both Freescale and Philips were
launching a variety of products using SOI on 300mm wafers in the coming months.
TSMC a Crolles2 alliance member will be offering SOI for 65nm applications in
2006, Soitec confirmed.
Soitec expects this financial year to see sales increase
around 70 percent compared to last year with sales near 236 million Euros.
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