TowerJazz Ltd. (Nasdaq: TSEM; TASE: TSEM) is extending its business collaboration in South Korea to education. The company will collaborate with the IC Design Education Center (IDEC) to accelerate Korea specialty integrated circuit design expertise. IDEC will provide Korean universities with access to a broad range of specialty process technologies from TowerJazz’s fab through discounted multi-project wafer shuttles.
TowerJazz already has contracts with several Korean semiconductor companies, including C&S Technology Inc. (KSX: 38880), Cesign Inc., GrandTek Technology Co. Ltd., SemiHow Co. Ltd., Taejin Technology Co. Ltd., and Dongwoon Anatech Ltd.
TowerJazz CEO Russell Ellwanger participated in a cooperation ceremony held in Korea last month by IDEC and professors from leading universities. IDEC is joint venture of the Korean government and major semiconductor companies to promote projects for national competitiveness by educating highly qualified design experts at Korean universities.
Ellwanger said, “Korea is a thriving region for technical and manufacturing innovation and will remain a center for future technological advancements. We feel that our collaboration with IDEC will be advantageous for the students by providing them practical and challenging experiences at an early stage in their career training and we will, as well, be extending the cooperation to include internships in our design center in Netanya, Israel to the top Ph.D. students of several leading universities.
"We have been encouraged by the wide acceptance of our technical excellence and differentiation as measured by the continued and rising number of customer engagements in Korea, in which we are targeting several hundreds of millions of revenue over the coming years. This program is our way of early partnering with the next generation of Korean technical leadership. This, in turn, will have long term benefits to the students/universities, Korean industry, TowerJazz and overall Korean-Israeli relations."
TowerJazz's share closed at $1.61 on Nasdaq yesterday, giving a market cap of $269 million. The share has risen 60% since the beginning of the year. The share price rose 3% by early afternoon on the TASE today to NIS 6.27.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on March 2, 2010
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