Multi-Project Wafer (MPW) Shuttle Program

Tower Semiconductor’s MPW shuttle program offers maximum flexibility while minimizing overall efforts.

Tower Semiconductor offers a low cost and quick prototyping MPW shuttle program providing essential elements for successful silicon production. Tower Semiconductor’s program enables customers to tape-out their designs for rapid prototyping and helps reduce costs by sharing the expense of masks and wafers with other MPW shuttle program participants.

Using the program, a customer can design and verify a wide range of intellectual property and run prototype designs before committing to a full production mask set. This can all be done using Tower Semiconductor’s standard manufacturing process technologies.

About the MPW Shuttle Program

Customers select a formal process flow and features from robust offerings

Each reticle field has up to 16 tiles of 5 x 5:

Some are reserved for R&D and PCM structures
Center tiles are used to ensure performance

A one-time MPW shuttle fee covers these items:

GDS data preparation, mask preparation and mask set order
Wafer processing
Standard sawing and back grind
Shipping ~60 complete tiles from several wafers

Special services for additional fee:

Larger than 5×5 tile size
Multiple processes on same tile
Intra-tile Sub dicing
Additional MPW shuttle parts
Extra stand-alone wafers if needed for bumping
ITAR specific handling if required