Dongbu (Seoul, Korea) has announced its Analog/Power "ecosystem" of 18 companies with connections to its BCDMOS processing capability. Four of these companies specialize in intellectual property (IP) and design while five focus on testing and nine on packaging.

"We carefully formulated our ecosystem to provide the industry’s most efficient and collaborative support for chip designers targeting the automotive and power IC market," asserted Jae Song, vice president of sales and marketing for Dongbu, in a statement. Song said he expects the ecosystem to add capabilities and partners over time.

Two months ago Dongbu qualified its 180-nm mixed-signal (MS180) process and EEPROM IP to meet the rigorous quality/reliability criteria set forth in the automotive AEC-Q100 ‘Grade 0’ standard. At the same time, the company confirmed that its 0.35-micron BCDMOS (BD350) process and other non-volatile memory (NVM) modules were currently being qualified to the same AEC-Q100 stress level.

Triune Systems is a design partner that specifically targets the automotive electronics market with its LIN transceiver IP, a physical layer device for single wire communications Other design and IP specialists in the ecosystem includes Mandate and IK Semicon, both providing comprehensive design services in power management, and PopCore Tech, which specializes in precision analog design.

Dongbu's testing specialists are Anora and Microtech Laboratories in the U.S., KYEC in Taiwan, and GM Test and I-Test in Korea. Packaging specialists include Chipbond and TICP in Taiwan, Unisemin Malaysia, and Nepes, LBS, Semiteq, Hanamicron, Signetics and Amkor in Korea.

By leveraging this array of test and packaging resources including specialized technologies such as thick copper for power, Dongbu's supply chain management team can craft turnkey services that target customer's requirements, the company said.

Dongbu is trying to differentiate itself among a host of players in the analog and mixed-signal foundry business including ASMC, Austriamicrosystems, MagnaChip, Tower and X-Fab. The large foundries, including TSMC, GlobalFoundries and UMC, also offer mixed-signal and analog-like processes and support for automotive applications to varying degrees.

For further information: www.dongbuhitek.com.