Fairchild Semiconductor and OMM announce strategic collaboration in MEMS technology

February 18, 2003--Fairchild Semiconductor a global supplier of high performance products that optimize system power in multiple end applications, today announced the company has signed a long-term production agreement with OMM, a San Diego, CA-based provider of MEMS all-optical switching modules. Fairchild (South Portland, ME) will supply OMM with MEMS wafers for use in optical networking applications.

Fairchild is currently manufacturing and shipping wafers in volume to meet a rigorous qualification process by OMM for its commercially available line of photonic switch products. These OMM products are compliant with the reliability and environmental standards from Telcordia Technologies.

The Fairchild/OMM agreement was predicated upon Fairchild's successful transfer of the SUMMiT IV process technology from Sandia National Laboratories, announced in October of 2001.

"Fairchild has leveraged its world-class manufacturing capabilities in South Portland, Maine to offer MEMS customers a fully-characterized and production-ready SUMMiT IV process technology for photonic switch products," said Gerry Fortin, managing director of Fairchild's Worldwide Foundry Group. "Our close working relationship with OMM has enabled Fairchild to complete the transition of the SUMMiT IV process into volume production and to ensure quality levels consistent with Telcordia standards."

The SUMMiT IV MEMS process technology chosen by OMM and Fairchild Semiconductor is a micromachining process for high reliability MEMS devices. Fairchild is the only company that is currently offering this technology for foundry manufacturing.

"Qualifying Fairchild-manufactured MEMS wafers provides significant yield and cost improvements in OMM's manufacturing process," said Mike Heath, vice president of Supply Chain Management at OMM. "OMM will benefit from increases in capacity utilization and assurance of supply to our customers."