tower semiconductor ltd

tower Semiconductor Ltd. (TowerJazz) and its fully owned U.S. subsidiary Jazz Semiconductor, operate collectively under the brand name TowerJazz, manufacturing integrated circuits with geometries ranging from 1.0 to 0.13 ?m. Tower Semiconductor is an Israeli company that manufactures semiconductors and integrated circuits for the electronics industry. It is a public company that is traded on NASDAQ and the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. The company is included in the TA-100 Index and the TA BlueTech-50 Index. TowerJazz offers a range of customizable process technologies, including SiGe, BiCMOS, mixed-signal and RFCMOS, CMOS image sensors, power management (BCD), and non-volatile memory (NVM) as well as MEMS capabilities. The company maintains two manufacturing facilities in Israel (FAB1 and FAB2), one in NPB CA, U.S. (FAB3), and one in Nishiwaki, Japan (FAB4) with additional capacity available in China through manufacturing partnerships. In 2010, TowerJazz recorded annual revenues of $509 million, and became the #1 specialty foundry based on revenues, with 70% of revenue growth year-over-year.

Tower Semiconductor company started out as a manufacturing plant for National Semiconductor in Migdal Haemek, Israel. The plant was established by the initiative of Israel engineer Dr. Giora Yaron, who began working as a physicist at the head office of National Semiconductor in Santa Clara, California in 1979, and persuaded the management to invest in Israel. Initially establishing a research and development center in Herzliya and in 1984 laid the cornerstone for the production plant. Mayor of Migdal Haemek Shaul Amor, was able to change the status of the city to a development zone area, to allow National Semiconductor to win this maximum state benefits provided by the investment encouragement law. Construction of the plant was completed in 1989. One of the first products that were manufactured by the company was an EPROM memory chip, which was developed by theFlash memory innovator Boaz Eitan at start-up company WaferScale Integration at the time.