GSA Fabless Facts

Definitions

Fabless (without fab) refers to the business methodology of outsourcing the manufacturing of silicon wafers, which hundreds of semiconductor companies have adopted. Fabless companies focus on the design, development and marketing of their products and form alliances with silicon wafer manufacturers, or foundries.

Foundry is a service organization that caters to the processing and manufacturing of silicon wafers. A pure-play foundry is a company that focuses 100% of its efforts on this service and offers no end products. These companies typically develop and own the process technology or partner with another company for it. Some companies offer 100% wafer manufacturing services and others offer foundry services to supplement their company's own requirements.

Wafer is short for silicon wafer, which is a thin disk of purified crystalline semiconductor that is cut after processing into individual chips. Today's leading foundries provide 8-inch wafers.

Fab is short for fabrication facility or silicon wafer manufacturing plant. This term is typically used to describe an individual facility, rather than a company.

Fab-lite refers to integrated device manufacturers or vertically integrated companies with a strategy bent toward utilizing a fabless approach.

Integrated Device Manufacturer (IDM) is a class of semiconductor company that owns an internal silicon wafer fab or, as the name indicates, the fabrication of wafers is integrated into its business. However, even IDMs may do some outsourcing.