Centillium to Leverage UMC Group for G.Lite Chipset Manufacturing

Fabless chipset developer Centillium Technology Corp. (Fremont, CA) hopes to optimize its digital subscriber line (DSL) chipsets and meet projected demand for its products by outsourcing certain foundry manufacturing to semiconductor consortium UMC Group. Taiwan-based UMC Group will manufacture G.Lite ADSL (G.992.2) chipset components for Centillium, providing production capacity support for Centillium's CopperLite central office (CO) and customer premises equipment (CPE) chipset product lines.

The move is expected to improve the performance of the company's silicon by integrating additional DSL system functions into a single chip. Leveraging its expertise in mixed signal and communications technologies, UMC Group will manufacture the analog chip component of Centillium's integrated chipsets.

UMC Group consists of United Microelectronics Corp., United Semiconductor Corp., United Integrated Circuits Corp, United Silicon Inc., and UTEK Semiconductor Corp. (all of Taiwan); and the first dedicated foundry in Japan, Nippon Foundry Inc. UMC Group US offices are located in Sunnyvale, CA.