Austria Microsystems
Encyclopedia
austriamicrosystems AG, frequently still known as AMS (Austria Mikro Systeme), is a multinational semiconductor
manufacturer. The headquarters are located in Unterpremstätten (Styria, Austria
). The main fields of business are the development and production of high performance analog Integrated Circuitry (ICs) such as standard analog products as well as customer specific solutions (ASICs
).
austriamicrosystems AG is engaged in the areas of power management
, sensor and sensor interfaces and hand held consumer electronics. With their products they serve the markets of communication
& consumer electronics
, industry
& medical electronics and automotive electronics
, rounded of by Full Service Foundry activities.
decides to expand its product and services range and chooses the Semiconductor industry. Due to voestalpine looking for a joint venture partner the first cooperation with American Micro Systems (AMI) was formed.
In 1981 this joint venture resulted in the American Micro Systems Inc. Austria GmbH. AMI owned 51% and voestalpine AG 49%. The château Premstätten in Unterpremstätten (Styria, Austria) was chosen as the main location. This was followed by the construction of the first Austrian Semiconductor factory. The set up of a sales branch for ROMs and standard products was also tackled during this period.
In 1983 the Austrian chancellor Fred Sinowatz officially opened the 100mm Wafer factory which started its production with 300 employees.
1987 was the year when voestalpine AG took over full ownership. In the same year the name was changed from AMI-A to AMS (Austria Mikro Systeme International GmbH). Further more there were new Sales branches established in California and Germany.
In 1990 AMS became one of the 25 fastest growing businesses in Europe (Source: Expertonics, Brussels).
AMS was chosen to be the “top Fab of 1992” (Source: Semiconductor International USA).
In 1993 AMS was the first Semiconductor Company in Europe to go public, at the Vienna stock exchange.
AMS decides to conquer new markets and that’s how the first sales office in Asia came about in 1995. In this year the company was also accredited according to the ISO 14001:1996 and EMAS (the European Eco Management and Audit Scheme)
NASAs “Deep Space 2” mission in 1998 took of with 2 chips developed from AMS and the aircraft manufacturer Boeing. These chips were designed to manage the power supply of the whole space probe. In the same year the company was accredited according to the American and German Automotive industry, QS 9000 and VDA 6.1 respectively.
2000 AMS set the foundation for the new 200mm Wafer factory. Due to the majority share holder Permira, AMS leaves the Vienna stock exchange the same year. This resulted in a further name change to austriamicrosystems AG.
2004 was the year austriamicrosystems AG found its way back to the stock exchange. Since the 17th of May that year Austriamicrosystems Ag is listed on the Swiss Stock exchange, short SIX, in Zürich.
In 2005 the standard products as well as the capacity of the 200mm Wafer factory were expanded to compensate for the shut down of the old 100mm factory which played a main part in the success of austriamicrosystems AG.
In 2006, the year of the 25th anniversary, a new test centre in the Philippines and a new design centre in India were built. The 200mm Wafer factory was also expanded further.
In 2007 austriamicrosystems AG stepped into new business segments in the form of a partnership with the micro motor manufacturer New Scale Technologies. In the same year the new cafeteria & conference centre was built buy the architect DI Tinchon.
The financial and the resulting economic crisis didn’t pass austriamicrosystems AG without leaving their mark. As many other companies they had to reduce work hours for parts of their workforce. However this didn’t last long as the orders started to grow again and most of those who had reduced hours could return to full hours. But even during these economically difficult times austriamicrosystems AG managed to join the UN global compact to reduce emissions and plans in the mid term to produce CO2-free.
The appearance of the château today is mainly thanks to the counts of Saurau. The arcaded atrium has been built in the second half of the 17th century. It received today’s still maintained rococo look more than a hundred years later.
From 1848 onwards the owner ship of the château changed more frequently. First the noble family Goëss held the ownership but was soon followed by the noble family of Normann.
In 1931 the château was bought by the order of Comboni, a catholic missionary order. The order was dispossessed of the château by the NS regime, which used it as a secret radio communication base. After the war, it was not restored to the order; instead it was used by American and Russian troops as a base. Only after the occupation period did the order get the château back, but it was in a miserable state.
The following years were marked by numerous renovation works. This had a huge financial impact on the order. In 1981 the order of Comboni finally decided to sell the château to the voestalpine AG under the condition that they would keep the chapel intact in its form and purpose.
After extensive renovation to adapt the château to office purposes it became the headquarters of austriamicrosystems AG.
players, mobile phones, LCD TVs and xenon
or LED
camera flashes.
In the area of medical and industrial electronics austriamicrosystems provides sensor
s and sensor interfaces. Their products are known to measure to smallest signals under extreme conditions such as extreme temperature fluctuations, humidity and vibration.
In the field of automotive electronics austriamicrosystems AG supplies Semiconductor
solutions which are used in intelligent vehicle access, security and comfort systems. They also supply sensors, sensor interfaces and high speed bus systems.
austriamicrosystems´ Foundry
is aimed at fabless companies, chip designers and integrated semiconductor providers which don’t have their own Wafer
factory. Hereby the focus lies on analog
and mixed signal ICs which often need complex and specialised processes.
on research and development
. In 2008 they spent € 25.6 million on R&D. In their business segments this is of the up most importance as they would otherwise fall behind their competition
.
, VDA6.1 and the Q1 certification of Ford. They also fulfil the environmental standards of ISO 14001:1996 and EMAS (Eco-Management and Audit Scheme
)
Semiconductor
A semiconductor is a material with electrical conductivity due to electron flow intermediate in magnitude between that of a conductor and an insulator. This means a conductivity roughly in the range of 103 to 10−8 siemens per centimeter...
manufacturer. The headquarters are located in Unterpremstätten (Styria, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
). The main fields of business are the development and production of high performance analog Integrated Circuitry (ICs) such as standard analog products as well as customer specific solutions (ASICs
ASICS
ASICS is a Japanese athletic equipment company. ASICS produces professional footwear and sports equipment designed for football, running, netball, tennis, badminton, squash, martial arts, cricket, golf, wrestling, track & field, cross-training, volleyball, cheerleading, lacrosse, and for many other...
).
austriamicrosystems AG is engaged in the areas of power management
Power management
Power management is a feature of some electrical appliances, especially copiers, computers and computer peripherals such as monitors and printers, that turns off the power or switches the system to a low-power state when inactive. In computing this is known as PC power management and is built...
, sensor and sensor interfaces and hand held consumer electronics. With their products they serve the markets of communication
Communication
Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast...
& consumer electronics
Consumer electronics
Consumer electronics are electronic equipment intended for everyday use, most often in entertainment, communications and office productivity. Radio broadcasting in the early 20th century brought the first major consumer product, the broadcast receiver...
, industry
Industry
Industry refers to the production of an economic good or service within an economy.-Industrial sectors:There are four key industrial economic sectors: the primary sector, largely raw material extraction industries such as mining and farming; the secondary sector, involving refining, construction,...
& medical electronics and automotive electronics
Automotive electronics
Automotive electronics are the electronics used in the automobiles.It includes body electronics, in car entertainment, carputers, chassis electronics and telematics.Automotive electronics...
, rounded of by Full Service Foundry activities.
1978-2000
voestalpine AGVoestalpine
Voestalpine AG is an international steel company based in Linz, Austria. The company is active in steel, automotive, railway systems, profilform and tool steel industries....
decides to expand its product and services range and chooses the Semiconductor industry. Due to voestalpine looking for a joint venture partner the first cooperation with American Micro Systems (AMI) was formed.
In 1981 this joint venture resulted in the American Micro Systems Inc. Austria GmbH. AMI owned 51% and voestalpine AG 49%. The château Premstätten in Unterpremstätten (Styria, Austria) was chosen as the main location. This was followed by the construction of the first Austrian Semiconductor factory. The set up of a sales branch for ROMs and standard products was also tackled during this period.
In 1983 the Austrian chancellor Fred Sinowatz officially opened the 100mm Wafer factory which started its production with 300 employees.
1987 was the year when voestalpine AG took over full ownership. In the same year the name was changed from AMI-A to AMS (Austria Mikro Systeme International GmbH). Further more there were new Sales branches established in California and Germany.
In 1990 AMS became one of the 25 fastest growing businesses in Europe (Source: Expertonics, Brussels).
AMS was chosen to be the “top Fab of 1992” (Source: Semiconductor International USA).
In 1993 AMS was the first Semiconductor Company in Europe to go public, at the Vienna stock exchange.
AMS decides to conquer new markets and that’s how the first sales office in Asia came about in 1995. In this year the company was also accredited according to the ISO 14001:1996 and EMAS (the European Eco Management and Audit Scheme)
NASAs “Deep Space 2” mission in 1998 took of with 2 chips developed from AMS and the aircraft manufacturer Boeing. These chips were designed to manage the power supply of the whole space probe. In the same year the company was accredited according to the American and German Automotive industry, QS 9000 and VDA 6.1 respectively.
2000 AMS set the foundation for the new 200mm Wafer factory. Due to the majority share holder Permira, AMS leaves the Vienna stock exchange the same year. This resulted in a further name change to austriamicrosystems AG.
2001–2010
The new 200mm production line starts its trial run. At the same time a license agreement has been reached between austriamicrosystems AG and TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd.), the largest global IC Foundry. After the successful trial run the new 200mm Wafer factory goes ahead with the mass production in 2002. Silicon Strategies listed austriamicrosystems as the only European company under the top ten 2003 Foundries worldwide.2004 was the year austriamicrosystems AG found its way back to the stock exchange. Since the 17th of May that year Austriamicrosystems Ag is listed on the Swiss Stock exchange, short SIX, in Zürich.
In 2005 the standard products as well as the capacity of the 200mm Wafer factory were expanded to compensate for the shut down of the old 100mm factory which played a main part in the success of austriamicrosystems AG.
In 2006, the year of the 25th anniversary, a new test centre in the Philippines and a new design centre in India were built. The 200mm Wafer factory was also expanded further.
In 2007 austriamicrosystems AG stepped into new business segments in the form of a partnership with the micro motor manufacturer New Scale Technologies. In the same year the new cafeteria & conference centre was built buy the architect DI Tinchon.
The financial and the resulting economic crisis didn’t pass austriamicrosystems AG without leaving their mark. As many other companies they had to reduce work hours for parts of their workforce. However this didn’t last long as the orders started to grow again and most of those who had reduced hours could return to full hours. But even during these economically difficult times austriamicrosystems AG managed to join the UN global compact to reduce emissions and plans in the mid term to produce CO2-free.
Château Premstätten
In 1164 the foundation for the château Premstätten was laid by the knights Hermann and Gumprecht of Premstätten. 200 years later the 600 year reign of the counts of Saurau began.The appearance of the château today is mainly thanks to the counts of Saurau. The arcaded atrium has been built in the second half of the 17th century. It received today’s still maintained rococo look more than a hundred years later.
From 1848 onwards the owner ship of the château changed more frequently. First the noble family Goëss held the ownership but was soon followed by the noble family of Normann.
In 1931 the château was bought by the order of Comboni, a catholic missionary order. The order was dispossessed of the château by the NS regime, which used it as a secret radio communication base. After the war, it was not restored to the order; instead it was used by American and Russian troops as a base. Only after the occupation period did the order get the château back, but it was in a miserable state.
The following years were marked by numerous renovation works. This had a huge financial impact on the order. In 1981 the order of Comboni finally decided to sell the château to the voestalpine AG under the condition that they would keep the chapel intact in its form and purpose.
After extensive renovation to adapt the château to office purposes it became the headquarters of austriamicrosystems AG.
Managing board
- John A. Heugle (CEO since 2002),
- Michael Wachsler-Markowitsch (CFO since 2003)
Shareholder structure
austriamicrosystems AG is listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange since 2004. 95% of the shares are free float and 5% are held by the management.Business segments
In the segment of Consumer & Communications austriamicrosystems serves the markets of mobile communication and mobile as well as fixed entertainment electronics. Their main focus rests on chip solutions for the power and lighting management. These chips can be found in MP3MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
players, mobile phones, LCD TVs and xenon
Xenon
Xenon is a chemical element with the symbol Xe and atomic number 54. The element name is pronounced or . A colorless, heavy, odorless noble gas, xenon occurs in the Earth's atmosphere in trace amounts...
or LED
LEd
LEd is a TeX/LaTeX editing software working under Microsoft Windows. It is a freeware product....
camera flashes.
In the area of medical and industrial electronics austriamicrosystems provides sensor
Sensor
A sensor is a device that measures a physical quantity and converts it into a signal which can be read by an observer or by an instrument. For example, a mercury-in-glass thermometer converts the measured temperature into expansion and contraction of a liquid which can be read on a calibrated...
s and sensor interfaces. Their products are known to measure to smallest signals under extreme conditions such as extreme temperature fluctuations, humidity and vibration.
In the field of automotive electronics austriamicrosystems AG supplies Semiconductor
Semiconductor
A semiconductor is a material with electrical conductivity due to electron flow intermediate in magnitude between that of a conductor and an insulator. This means a conductivity roughly in the range of 103 to 10−8 siemens per centimeter...
solutions which are used in intelligent vehicle access, security and comfort systems. They also supply sensors, sensor interfaces and high speed bus systems.
austriamicrosystems´ Foundry
Foundry
A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal in a mold, and removing the mold material or casting after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals processed are aluminum and cast iron...
is aimed at fabless companies, chip designers and integrated semiconductor providers which don’t have their own Wafer
Wafer (electronics)
A wafer is a thin slice of semiconductor material, such as a silicon crystal, used in the fabrication of integrated circuits and other microdevices...
factory. Hereby the focus lies on analog
Analog signal
An analog or analogue signal is any continuous signal for which the time varying feature of the signal is a representation of some other time varying quantity, i.e., analogous to another time varying signal. It differs from a digital signal in terms of small fluctuations in the signal which are...
and mixed signal ICs which often need complex and specialised processes.
Research and development
austriamicrosytems Ag spends around a quarter of its revenueRevenue
In business, revenue is income that a company receives from its normal business activities, usually from the sale of goods and services to customers. In many countries, such as the United Kingdom, revenue is referred to as turnover....
on research and development
Research and development
The phrase research and development , according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, refers to "creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of man, culture and society, and the use of this stock of...
. In 2008 they spent € 25.6 million on R&D. In their business segments this is of the up most importance as they would otherwise fall behind their competition
Competition
Competition is a contest between individuals, groups, animals, etc. for territory, a niche, or a location of resources. It arises whenever two and only two strive for a goal which cannot be shared. Competition occurs naturally between living organisms which co-exist in the same environment. For...
.
Quality and environmental management
Austriamicrosystems is certified with the following quality standards, ISO/TS 16949:2002, ISO/TS 13485:2003, ISO 9001:2000, QS9000QS9000
QS9000 is a quality standard developed by a joint effort of the "Big Three" automakers, General Motors, Chrysler and Ford. It was introduced to the industry in 1994. It has been adopted by several heavy truck manufacturers in the U.S. as well...
, VDA6.1 and the Q1 certification of Ford. They also fulfil the environmental standards of ISO 14001:1996 and EMAS (Eco-Management and Audit Scheme
Eco-Management and Audit Scheme
The Eco-Management and Audit Scheme is a voluntary environmental management instrument, which was developed in 1993 by the European Commission. It enables organisations to assess, manage and continuously improve their environmental performance. The scheme is globally applicable and open to all...
)