The investment will be used to support future growth and expansion by SOCLE. The two companies will collaborate on further developing and optimizing design services for customers targeting Chartered’s advanced manufacturing processes. SOCLE provides design services and development kits that span the chip design process from initial specification through design implementation to final chip assembly and testing.
SOCLE and Chartered have a long track record of implementing their mutual customers’ designs, with SOCLE offering development kits to reduce the time and effort in achieving working silicon for complex IC designs featuring embedded technology. The company is one of several qualified Chartered design services partners around the world.
“SOCLE has developed a strong expertise in helping customers develop complex SoC designs, and its embedded platforms are production-proven. Its experience in hardening ARM cores and developing ARM-based platforms is especially appealing to our customer base,” said Kay Chai “KC” Ang, senior vice president of worldwide sales and marketing for Chartered. “As an investment for Chartered, we believe SOCLE has a solid business model and is well-resourced to address new opportunities.”
“Chartered’s management experience and success in working with companies doing advanced IC design will be of great value to SOCLE as we plan our next phase of growth. We appreciate the confidence Chartered has demonstrated in us as both a strategic supplier of services to its customer base, as well as in our business model and potential to expand,” said David Lyou, President and CEO of SOCLE.
About Chartered
Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd. (Nasdaq:CHRT)(SGX:CHARTERED), one of the world’s top dedicated semiconductor foundries, offers leading-edge technologies down to 65 nanometer (nm), enabling today’s system-on-chip designs. The company further serves its customers’ needs through a collaborative, joint development approach on a technology roadmap that extends to 22nm. Chartered’s strategy is based on open and comprehensive design enablement solutions, manufacturing enhancement strategies, and a commitment to flexible sourcing. In Singapore, the company operates a 300mm fabrication facility and five 200mm facilities. Information about Chartered can be found at www.charteredsemi.com.
About SOCLE
SOCLE Technology is dedicated itself into providing professional SoC design platform solutions and SoC design services. SOCLE’s main R&D team is made up of employees from major hi-tech companies around the globe and possesses broad experience in SoC design. SOCLE Technology owns solid design teams and core technologies (SoC-ImP® and μPlatform®), and its service scope not only covers major system providers and IC design companies in Taiwan, but also expands to those in USA, Japan, Korea and China. SOCLE Technology offers world-leading design platform solutions and services for ASIC Implementation Service and ARM SoC Platform Service. SOCLE Technology’s mature design platform solutions and professional design services will substantially increase customer’s silicon success and competitiveness of ARM based SoC. SOCLE Technology can be found on the web at www.socle-tech.com.
Safe Harbor Statement under the provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995
This news release contains forward-looking statements, as defined in the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements, including without limitation, statements relating to our collaboration efforts with SOCLE, the advantages of our collaboration, Socle’s future growth and expansion, new opportunities after our investment in Socle. Among the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially are the successful implementation of our partnership, technology and supply alliances (including our joint development agreements with IBM and the other joint development partners); changes in the demands from our major customers, manufacturing capacity constraints, excess inventory, life cycle, market outlook and trends for specific products; the slow down in the economic conditions in the United States as well as globally; demand and supply outlook in the semiconductor market; competition from other foundries and pricing pressures; products mix; unforeseen delays, interruptions, performance level of our fabrication facilities; our progress on leading-edge products; changes in capacity plans, allocation and process technology mix; unavailability of materials, equipment, manpower and expertise; the growth rate of fabless companies, the outsourcing strategy of integrated device manufacturers ("IDM") and our expectation that IDMs will utilize foundry capacity more extensively. Although we believe the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based upon reasonable assumptions, we can give no assurance that our expectations will be attained. In addition to the foregoing factors, a description of certain other risks and uncertainties which cause actual results to differ materially can be found in “Item 3. Key Information – D. Risk Factors” in our 2007 annual report on Form 20-F filed with the U.S. SEC. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which reflect management’s current analysis of future events. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
Contact:
Chartered Singapore:
Celestine Lim, (65) 6850.6123
Email Contact
or
Chartered
U.S.:
Tiffany Sparks, (1) 408.941.1185
Email Contact
or
SOCLE:
Eric
Li, (886) 3.516.3166 ext 609
Email Contact