Company: TSEM
Filing Date: 2025-04-30
Form Type: 20-F
Source: 0001178913-25-001537
Chunk: 135

Company: TOWER SEMICONDUCTOR LTD
Filing Date: 2025-04-30
Form: 20-F
Item: Item 4
Chunk 135
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 patterns which requires hundreds of interrelated steps performed on different types of equipment, and each step must be completed with extreme accuracy to achieve good device performance metrics. In some cases, we provide our customers with our own proprietary or third-party design elements. We perform a series of processes, in which photosensitive material is deposited on the wafer and exposed to light through a mask, and hundreds of steps (moves) per wafer, including photolithography, oxidation, etching and stripping of different layers and materials, ion implantation, deposition of thin film layers, chemical mechanical polishing and thermal processing. The final step is wafer probing, which involves inspection of each unit in order to identify those that are operable for assembly. Customers often use third party service providers for the performance of wafer probing. In most cases, our customer assumes responsibility for dicing, assembly, packaging and testing.
 
Our customers are semiconductor fabless companies and semiconductor IDMs, and module integrators for AI and Data Centers as sole source or second source, and enable smooth integration of the semiconductor design and wafer processes. By doing so, we enable our customers to bring high-performance, highly integrated end products to market rapidly and cost effectively. We believe that our technological strengths and emphasis on customer service have allowed us to develop a unique position in large, high-growth specialized markets for silicon photonics in AI and Data Center communications, RF in smart phone, IoT and infrastructure communications, power management in industrial, automotive and consumer end markets and CMOS image sensors.
 
Our manufacturing process is using specialty process technologies, mostly based on CMOS process platforms with added features to enable special and unique functionality, decreased footprint of products, competitive performance and cost advantages for analog and mixed-signal semiconductors. Products made with our specialty process technologies are typically more complex than products made using standard process technologies employing similar technology nodes. Generally, customers that use our specialty process technologies cannot easily transfer designs to another foundry because the analog characteristics of the design are dependent upon the specific process technology used. The specialty process design infrastructure is complex and includes design kits and device models that are specific to the foundry in which the process is implemented and to the process technology itself. In addition, the relatively small engineering community with specialty process expertise and the significant investment required for development or transfer and maintenance of specialty process technologies has limited the number of foundries capable of offering specialty process technologies. We believe that our specialized process technologies combined with dedicated design enablement capabilities distinguish our services and attract industry-leading customers.