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Numonyx becomes official
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The delayed formation of Numonyx, a spin-off of loss-making
non-volatile memory business units of Intel Corporation and
STMicroelectronics that involves private equity firm Francisco
Partners, has officially been launched as a standalone entity.
Depending on classification, Numonyx becomes the third largest
non-volatile memory manufacturer with revenues of approximately $3
billion, according to Q407 figures from iSuppli Corp., down
approximately $600 million from 2006 combined revenues.
Numonyx will be headquartered in Switzerland and incorporated in the
Netherlands. Brian Harrison (pictured), formerly VP and GM of the Flash
Memory Group for Intel, has been appointed CEO of Numonyx, while Mario
Licciardello, previously Corporate VP and GM of STMicroelectronics’
Flash Memories Group has been appointed COO. The number of employees
has been put at 7,000, down from an initial 8,000 with approximately
2,500 former Intel employees.
Intel will have a 45.1 percent
ownership in Numonyx; ST Microelectronics take a 48.6 percent share;
and Francisco Partners gains a 6.3 percent ownership interest at a cost
of $150 million in cash.
Numonyx will start operations with
$450 million of debt financing from Intesa Sanpaolo S.p.A and Unicredit
Banca d’Impresa S.p.A. The loans have a 4-year term, guaranteed by both
Intel and STMicroelectronics equally. A $100 million revolving credit
facility has also been established.
The original financing, announced in May 2007, called on a $1.3 billion term loan and $250 million revolving credit facility.
Numonyx
claims to start operations with six 200mm and three 300mm wafer fabs,
including Numonyx-owned facilities in Israel, Italy and Singapore. The
Company also announced that it was in volume production at the 65nm
node with NOR flash memory. Numonyx plans to start migrating to the
45nm node by the end of 2008.
Currently, Numonyx is dependent on
floating gate flash technology but is expected to further invest in
Phase Change Memory for sub-45nm nodes, as floating gate does not, it
is believed, cost-effectively scale to smaller geometries.